Contradiction texts
First of all let's define what creativity is.
In my opinion, creativity is ability to resolve specific type of problems on demand. We call such problem "inventive problems"
The ordinary problem turns into inventive one when attempts to improve something by traditional methods cause to another problem.
It is called "contradiction". Some people are able to resolve inventive problems without any method or process. Unfortunately, their ability could not be transferred to other people and reproduced.
Some (specially trained) people are able to do this with help of methods or processes. In this case their ability might be transferred to other people and reproduced.
Levels of creativity differ like levels of problems that should to be resolved.
Complexity does not make the problem creative. Complicated problem might be problem with "zero" level of creativity.
Uncertainty of initial conditions and a number of "right" solutions characterize in my opinion creative problems.
Fortunately over the last decades attitude to possibility to control creativity and methods that increase creativity has been changing.
Two more points:
1) Creativity and innovation are different things, in my opinion, although they are connected;
2) Methods don't deny creativity but advance it to a new level
Matrix
I am not a big fan of the contradiction matrix as means for searching of appropriate principles for problem solving. I prefer more accurate tools like elements of ARIZ (fingers on one hand is enough to count when I used whole ARIZ to solve the real problems) or standards. Even 40 principles themselves without matrix when they reorganized in a little bit different form are preferred in my opinion.
Nevertheless I find trials to solve problems with help of the matrix very useful. Trying to match real parameters of a system to the parameters of the matrix enables a problem solver to get deeper into the problem and understand it better. And better problem understanding is step in the right direction. Thus preparing to use the matrix itself, in my opinion more useful than its (sometimes-misleading) suggestions to apply specific principles.
The aim of the article is to make using of the “conventional” matrix easier and more algorithmic. And maybe matrix’s suggestions to use specific principles in this case will be less misleading. Who knows?...
http://www.bmgi.com/sites/bmgi.com/files/Effective.pdf
Once Again about Contradiction
There are three options to overcome a contradiction:
• Separate contradictory requirements
• Satisfy contradictory requirements
• Bypass contradictory requirements
For the first time I heard about these three options from S.Litvin at his seminar. The context was different (usage of inventive principles for resolving physical contradictions in frames of ARIZ 85C), but content (separation, satisfying, bypassing) was the same.
There's no issue with the first point.
What do the second and third points mean?
Let’s get a little bit deeper… with a "classic" example.
Icebreaker should make a wide canal in ice but it demands a lot of energy.
In order to make a wide canal the icebreaker should be thick and in order not to waste energy it should be thin.
• We can separate this contradiction (thick/thin)
• We can satisfy it - choose one of the mentioned above values (thin) and try to make wide canal in the ice with a thin icebreaker
• We can bypass this contradiction trying to get our goal without icebreaker (and canal).
Such an approach a little bit differs from the one that was used in frame of Litvin’s modification of ARIZ 85C when we choose separate, satisfy or bypass basing on analysis of operative time and operative zone for each of conflicting requirements.
I would like to point that overcoming a contradiction we don't always need to have two opposite values of the same parameter in order to meet two conflicting requirements in order to get our goals, but choose one of the mentioned above three options:
• Separate the two opposite values of the same parameter (the first option - separate)
• Choose one of the conflicting requirements and satisfy the other one (the second option - satisfy)
• Get a goal by an alternative way (the third option - bypass)
The first option directs us to one parameter, the second one widens amount of parameters that should be evaluated and the third option directs us to choose an alternative way to meet our goal (get result). Thus consequence “separate->satisfy->bypass” is correct to overcome contradictions according to the “minimal change” criterion.
We can also say that we "separate" on level of a subsystem, "satisfy" on level of the system and "bypass" on level of a super-system. This reminds the first part that existed in the previous ARIZs, where was suggested to reformulate a problem (and the inverted one) on level of a subsystem, system and super-system...
Such an approach can be easily implemented to increase efficiency of "Cloud" (conflict resolution diagram from TOC) or other tools that deal with contradictions.
About resolving contradiction by separating, satisfying or bypassing contradictory requirements
We satisfy both contradictory requirements by separating (1) we satisfy one of the requirements and bypass another (2) we bypass the requirements (3).
For icebreaker it looks as follows:
1. Separate (icebreaker thin and thick)
2. Satisfy (get a wide canal with thin icebreaker or save energy with a thick one)
3. Bypass - perform function without the function's subject (make a canal without icebreaker)
Of course we can bypass with a "short arc" with a "long arc". The point 3 is bypassing with a "short arc". Bypassing with a "long arc" looks like:
Bypass - get result (moving through ice) without a canal.
But "bypassing arc" might be even longer. For example:
Bypass - bring goods in the Arctic without a ship.
So let’s divide “bypass" into two parts. Actually it is possible.
Bypass (1) - perform function without the function's subject (make a canal without icebreaker)
Bypass (2) - get result without function's object (without a canal)
For better presenting of the idea let’s put them into quadrants.
These quadrants should be related to contradictory requirements and their treatment...
In this case axes might be treatment (satisfy or bypass) and requirements (one of requirements or both requirements). When we satisfy both contradictory requirements - we resolve the contradiction by separating the requirements. When we bypass both contradictory requirements – we resolve the contradiction by its removal. And when we satisfy of the contradictory and bypass another one - we resolve the contradiction by satisfying it.
Making Hard Decision
I assume hard decisions as solutions that resolve hard problems. Hard – because such problems include inside them contradictions.
An ordinary problem turn into the hard one when attempts to improve something by traditional methods cause to another problem.
It is called "contradiction".
In order to make a good decision we have to take into account demands of so called "Ideal Final Result (IFR)". Any good decision should:
1. Create, improve or keep desired results;
2. Eliminate (or reduce to nearly zero) undesired results;
3. Not to cause any additional harm;
4. Not to complicate the system;
There is an entire methodology for making good decisions:
1. Basing on choice of the right problem;
2. Defining the right direction to resolve the problem;
3. And then finding the right solution (good decision);
This methodology includes the following stages:
1. Analyze situation and choose "the right" challenge;
2. Present the challenge in form of a contradiction - it appears if trying to meet the challenge (1) by "traditional" ways we come across with another challenge (2);
3. Define the IFR (ideal final result) to meet the challenge - nothing has changed, but the challenge (1) is met or nothing has changed but the challenge (2) does not appear.
4. Assess available resources - actually as resources you can use everything that connected with the challenge.
5. Use so called "world wisdom" - inventive principles to transform resources in order to meet the challenge by finding decision idea. If you could use them (resources) without transformation - it would not be challenging.
6. Assess if you have gained IFR and define subsequent challenges in case they appear.
Problem 1
"Passengers (for any reason) take their luggage with them, but this cause to increasing amount of time they (passengers) spend in the aisle, hefting their bags into the overhead compartments."
The IFR (ideal final result) demands for this are as follows:
1. Passengers take their luggage with them
BUT
2. This does not cause to increasing amount of time they spend in the aisle, hefting their bags into the overhead compartments
AND
3. This does not complicate the system
AND
4. This doesn’t cause additional undesired or harmful effects
Solution should satisfy the mentioned above demands.
It will be possible only if we use resources of the system, its subsystems, super-system, environment and/or surroundings - in our case the aircraft, its subsystem, including team, surroundings of the aircraft, airport etc. as "elements" and also their activities, processes actions and interaction.
Problem 2
Companies should be sincere with customers in order to build and maintain long-term relationship and companies should not be sincere with customers in order to make money here and now.
These contradiction requirements might be separated, satisfied or bypassed using special techniques. For example, the requirements might be separated:
1. in time;
2. in space;
3. in structure;
4. upon condition;
5. By introducing an extra-object from resources;
Or we can grasp one of the contradictory requirements satisfying consequences of another.
Or we can change initial conditions in such a manner that contradiction does not appear – bypass.
Problem 3
There should not be leaders at all to "free" people and make them independent in their decisions and actions AND every one should be a leader in order to organize people into teams that are necessary to gain complicated goals and/or resolve complicated problems.
Physical contradictions are resolved by separating contradictory demands:
1. in time;
2. in space;
3. in structure;
4. upon condition;
5. By inserting of an additional element from resources (it isn't "conventional" separation)
There are two more "unconventional" separation principles that might be retrieved from religious books and adapted to material world:
1. Separation between cause and effect (or reason and consequence);
2. Relatively to different properties/characteristics;
Problem 4
If there are a lot of options our chance to choose the best one is high, but this causes to time wasting to evaluate them (options)
If there are a few options time wasting is less, but our chance to choose the best one is less also because the best option might not to be among those few that are evaluated.
Thus, there should be a lot of option (actually all) in order to choose the best one AND there should be a few options (actually one) in order not to waste time for evaluation.
Such contradictions might be resolved by:
1. Separating contradictory demands (all possible options<->one option);
2. Satisfying one of demands with help of additional means (resources)
3. Bypassing both demands by their removal.
Problem 5
In order to increase efficiency employers should simplify work of their employees. In order to increase (or even to keep on the same level) engagement employers have to... complicate work of their employees.
Thus, they (employers) have to simplify and complicate a work.
Problem 6
In order to save his/her time and simplify connecting process one should have account in one (or even no one) of social/media networks. In order to be connected with all the world one should have accounts in all social/media networks.
Thus one should have zero/one account and one should have all accounts.
What could be done?
Actually there is a solution idea - an intermediary app that will eliminate necessity to have accounts in all social/media networks or even to have an account in one of them. Somebody should "take up the glove" and develop such an app - something like Uber or Airbnb of social/media networks.
Problem 7
FBI wants to fight terror and criminals.
As a "common "way/method FBI tries to "monitor" smartphones (in this case iPhones)
Therefore is a contradiction here - smartphones should be open in order to increase ability to fight terror and criminals and should be close in order to secure our privacy.
This contradiction might be resolved by separating, satisfying or bypassing of the mentioned above contradictory demands.
Separating (to be open and to be close)
1. Separate the contradictory demands in time
2. Separate the contradictory demands "in space"
3. Separate the contradictory demands by structure changes
4. Separate the contradictory demands "upon conditions"
5. Separate the contradictory demands by inserting an extra-element (from resources)
Satisfying (increase ability to fight terror and criminals and secure our privacy)
One of the contradictory demands is already fulfilled - satisfy another one by available resources.
Bypass
Find possibility to fight terror and criminals without "monitoring" smartphones.
Unfortunately government services were not trained to resolve such contradictions...
Problem 8
Dream big (innovate)
OR
Get stuff done (execute)
Inside of the technical contradiction is (are) hidden so called "physical contradiction(s)", for example:
Innovate in order "to dream big" AND do not innovate in order to "get stuff done"
OR
Execute in order "get stuff done" AND do not execute in order to "dream big"
One can formulate other physical contradictions, for example:
Invest money into innovation process in order to... AND do not invest money into innovation process in order to...
OR
Provide resources for innovation process in order to... AND do not provide resources for innovation process in order to...
Etc.
After formulating physical contradiction we can resolve it by separating, satisfying or bypassing contradictory requirements - those that we should do and not to do in our case.
Separating contradictory demands might be performed:
1. in time;
2. in space;
3. in structure;
4. upon condition;
5. By inserting of an additional "element" from resources (it isn't "conventional" separation)
There are also specific procedures for satisfying or by passing...
In my opinion, creativity is ability to resolve problems on demand. Some people are able to do this without any method and/or process. Unfortunately their ability could not be transferred to other people and reproduced.
Some people are able to do this with help of methods and/or processes. In this case their ability might be transferred to other people and reproduced.
Levels of creativity differ like levels of problems that need to be resolved. Complexity does not make the problem creative. Complicated problem might be problem with "zero" level of creativity.
Uncertainty of initial conditions and a number of "right" solutions characterize creative problems
Creativity
Creativity should be "on-demand". One should be able to switch it on/off. Why "off"? Because life is combination mainly routine procedures with routine solutions that work. We need creativity in situations where routine approach does not work. Once the solution was found it turns into the routine one until the next "emergency" case.
Part of TRIZ that is connected to tools, games and exercises that are intended to break so called psychological inertia is called "Creative Imagination Development". For more about games, tools and exercises see my review.
Tools for creative imagination development could be improved and personally adjusted basing on personal sets of meta-programs. Meta-program is term that is used in NLP (neuro-linguistic programming).
Each of us have set of meta-programs. We look at the world around us through prism of this set.
Some of us move to positive and some of us move from negative - one meta-program type
Some of us see general and then go down to details and some of us see details and then go up to general - another meta-program type
Some of us have inner motivation and some of us have outer motivation - one more meta-program type.
We reflect everything that surrounds us through the following meta-programs that are called "reality reflection gates:
1. Goals (sense) - answers to the questions "What for?" and/or "Why?"
2. Actions (things) - answers to the questions "What?"
3. Processes - answers to the questions "How?" and/or "What is the sequence (of actions or events)?"
4. Places - answers to the question "Where?"
5. Time - answers to the questions "When?"
6. People - answers to the questions "Who?"
Majority of people most of time use two-three "reality reflection gates".
This does not mean that restrictions caused by meta-programs could not be overcome.
Moreover, if you know your own meta-programs - this knowledge enables you to choose right tools to overcome their influence.
Breaking psychological inertia could be assumed, in my opinion, as overcoming limits of personal set of meta-programs. Therefore classifying tools and games for breaking psychological inertia according to meta-programs could enable us to adjust these tools depending on personal sets of meta-programs. Such a classifying could also uncover so called “empty cells” in order to develop new tools and games.
Education texts
Pay attention to so called TRIZ pedagogics.
One of the best sites in Russian about TRIZ-pedagogics is here:
http://www.trizway.com/
Yes, it is in Russian, but Google translator can help a lot
Here are links to some TRIZ pedagogical articles that were translated to English:
http://www.triz-profi.com/upload/5_13_eng.pdf
http://www.triz-profi.com/upload/5_12_eng.pdf
http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2004/04/02.pdf
http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2004/08/04.pdf
Some principles that could be transferred from business to education:
1. Education is rather ecosystem than a battlefield
2. Education institution is rather a community than a machine
3. Learning motivation isn't based on fear but on a mutual vision
4. Education technologies should rather emancipate than "automatize"
5. Learning isn't a hard work only, but also a joy
6. Students/scholars are rather colleges than "kids"
7. Teaching is rather a service than control
8. Continuous change of education process is rather development than a “suffering”
Unfortunately I don't remember who the author of the similar principles for business is.
What is the Basic Education Problem?
This question was asked (and answered) hundreds (or even more) times. There are excellent articles that try to answer this question.
From the MUST (multilevel universal system thinking) point of view we deal here with the highest (desired) change level of the education system - change of the result (satisfied need)
What are results that should be achieved by education from different points of view (pupils, students, parents, society etc.)?
The issue is that pupils, students, parents, society (it isn't homogeneous also) strive to get different "sets of skills", because they all have different "interests". Let's don’t forget about the education system itself that also has its own interests.
By the way, was a time when different interests coincided? I mean that maybe the basic problems somehow is connected with such a non-coincidence of interests nowadays.
I think that there is also non-coincidence between what pupils, students, parents, society etc. want from education system and what they really need. Actually one of the problems (I am not sure that this problem is the basic one) is that they don't know (are not able to know) what they really need...
Let's continue with different points of views...
Parents point of view:
Education system should prepare for future life, but it cannot do this because it teaches basing on... the past experience
Pupils and students point of view:
Education system should teach things that they would love to do in the future but it cannot do this because each one has his/her own preferences and these preferences do not coincide with society demands
Society point of view:
Education system should satisfy future needs and do this for cheap, but it cannot do this because it isn't able to predict the future and provide a “cheap” quality
Education system point of view:
Education system should teach and test necessary sum of knowledge but it cannot do this because such a sum grows too quickly and continually changes - old knowledge and testing systems become obsolete.
There are a lot of other problems but let's start from something
Schools are often compared to factories, but in my opinion in case of such a low "yield" factories would be bankrupts. The issue is what should be assumed as "yield" of the education system. And seriously speaking don't you see a problem in the fact that "education factory" less takes into account its "product properties" than factories in nearly any industry?
I don't like to see an education as a manufacturing process, but it very close to such a process - sins of industrial revolutions. Moreover it is rather like a manufacturing process with backward oriented dispatching and marketing systems.
By the way, sir Ken Robinson in his lectures says that education should be rather as agriculture - it should cultivate and create conditions for "growing".
I would agree with him, but education should also satisfy needs of society.
Agrifactory?
Education problem isn't a single problem, but a tree (or even a "net") of interconnected (and sometimes looped) problems.
One of the modern education problems - it does not guarantee a good work anymore...
The fact that teachers stopped to be the main sources of knowledge for pupils and students also might be assumed as a some kind of the modern education problem.
Another problem is that that some knowledge and skills become obsolete before they were used for the first time.
Fortunately according to TOC (theory of constraints) such trees have a few key-problems (constraints). In case these key-problems are resolved - whole the tree ("net") disappears.
It isn't always possible at the "allowed" level of change, but let's not to hurry giving up...
Principles of teaching process are:
1.Actuality
2.Interest
3.Activity
4.Controllability
5.Effectiveness
The basic problem of the modern education
This problem relates to increase of the gap between what is actually taught and what should be taught.
Moreover, this situation gets worse because society, teachers, parents and students actually don't know what should be taught in order to get prepared for future life and/or satisfy needs of society. In addition there is also mismatch between what should be taught and what students want to learn – in case they want to learn.
We even are not able to evaluate this gap (between what is actually taught and what should be taught) correctly, because the "system" does not know what should be taught.
The separate issue is that students, parents, society (it isn't homogeneous also) strive to get different "sets of skills", because they all have different "interests". Let's also not to forget about the education system itself that also has its own interests.
Rapid changes of the modern world also contribute to increasing the gap…
Each learning process passes through four stages:
1. Unconscious absence of knowledge (proficiencies, skills etc.) – “unconscious unknowing”
2. Conscious absence of knowledge (proficiencies, skills etc.) – “conscious unknowing”
3. Conscious knowledge (proficiencies, skills etc.) – “conscious knowing”
4. Unconscious knowledge (proficiencies, skills etc.) – “unconscious knowing”
If you try to teach others you have to stay at the third stage - otherwise you will not be able to explain what you know and teach others. But in order to be the best implementation professional you should be at the fourth stage.
I would like to add the fifth stage - controllable knowledge (proficiencies, skills etc.), where unconsciousness might be switched on/off upon demand.
Only a small amount of specialists in each field (including innovation) “populates” the fifth stage.
TRIZ is based on and develops a number of thinking like:
System thinking;
Thinking that is oriented to ideality and usage of resources;
Dialectic thinking that is oriented to revealing and resolving contradictions;
Non-ordinary thinking that implement different points of view on systems and problems;
Pattern-based (controllable) thinking;
Each one of these thinking has its own support tools and they all are parts of the same system of thinking
According to my understanding powerful thinking should be:
Systematic = Systems Thinking
Dialectic (contradiction) = Thinking through identifying and resolving contradictions
Directed (ideality) = Evolutionary Thinking
Non-ordinary = Creative Imagination
Controllable (possibility to switch on/off) = Modeling
Problem solving process and TRIZ basics
1. I need system thinking to choose the key problem/opportunity
2. I also need so called dialectic thinking to define this problem/opportunity in form of a contradiction
3. I need ideality approach to choose most promising direction to resolve the contradiction
4. I need resource approach to realize the "ideal" or at least come closer to it
5. I need so called "patterns" - the tools that are actually something like "world wisdom" to know how to change these resources (obvious, latent or derived) in order to resolve the contradiction.
6. I need non-ordinary thinking to accept sometimes a "wild" idea that is suggested by the "patterns"
7. And once again I need the ideality approach in order to evaluate the ideas and the system thinking to assembly these ideas to concepts and define subsequent problems.
People are different.
Some people have positive thinking approach and see the world through a prism of opportunities.
They "go to a better".
Some people have negative thinking approach and see the world through prism of problems.
They "leave a worse"
There are also people (~10%) with so called "dialectic" thinking approach and see the world through a prism of contradictions.
They try "to get a compromise"
Different cultures (depending on countries) educate people to use one of the mentioned above thinking approaches.
For example, US educates mostly positive thinking.
But for powerful thinking we need all of the mentioned above thinking approaches.
"The Fogg Behavior Model shows that three elements must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur: Motivation, Ability, and Trigger. When a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three elements is missing."
For more see here: http://behaviormodel.org/index.html
As far as performing could be related to a behavior - underperforming might be also considered as missing at least one of three elements: motivation, ability or trigger.
One can see that mentioned in the article reasons and corrective/prevention measures could be classified according to the three behavior elements.
Those that have ability and motivation always "perform". Those that lack ability and motivation always underperform and nothing will help. Those that lack one of two - or ability or motivation will underperform if has been chosen a wrong trigger. By the way, these "partial invalids" are the majority.
The issue is in correct determining ability, motivation of a candidate and choice of correct triggers.
Evaluating Startup
Month (actually more than ten years ago) I have presented criteria that startup’s idea should pass in order to be successful.
These criteria also could help in evaluating startup companies. Let’s take, for example, X- startup company at Y-market. The startup and presented numbers are real, but I would not like to reveal its name.
1. The idea should be consumable - this means that it should resolve a real customer's problem and/or satisfie a real customer's need.
The idea resolves the real customer’s problem. Moreover, resolving this problem (according to research) might increase potential market at least twice.
2. The idea should be marketable - this means that market for the idea should be big enough and in case it is big, it (market) should not be occupied with strong players that simply won't allow your success.
Potential market volume for the idea in USA is at least one billion dollars and it (market) as was mentioned above will grow. The market is underserved and isn’t occupied - the only player has 10% market share right now. The player’s product has a lot of disadvantages that don’t allow fully resolve customer's problem. Its (player's) technology also does not allow fast growing in order to increase quickly player's market share.
3. The idea should be protectable - this means not only "patent umbrellas", but also knowhow. Otherwise, "Blue Ocean" is going to turn into "red" one.
The startup’s product is defended by a number of patents and its technology is also strongly protected by knowhow.
4. The idea should be feasible - this means that it is possible to build a working in real conditions prototype.
The idea feasibility was proven by building the working prototype. Moreover, the startup has already developed and successfully tested the product itself and its manufacturing technology. Product tests have proven that the product fully resolves customers’ problem.
5. The idea is profitable - this means that it satisfies three contradictive demands: quality, time and cost.
This is the most interesting point... In case of successful marketing and taking 10% of Y-market share (I would like to remind that the market is underserved) during two-three years the X-startup company is going to bring about twenty millions net profit (the number is supported by financials) because of its unique technology. As far as P/E ratio for X-startup’s industry is about forty (40), the company (in case of success, of course) could be evaluated about seven-eight hundreds millions dollars. Actually, this number (0.7-0.8 billion) is right in case the company is a “cash-cow”, but as far as we have here underserved and growing market – the company is going to be a “star”.
As known, only one of ten startups gains commercial success. For the mentioned above X-startup such a failure ratio (9/1) is significantly reduced. Nevertheless, in my opinion, one should increase it (failure ratio), because we leave in the changing world and who knows what is going to occur in the future.
As far as numbers were presented – this evaluating case could be assumed as the “easy” one.
So what is evaluation of the X-startup, in your opinion?
Guided Brainstorming
Guided Brainstorming Process - Summary
Guided Brainstorming is a linkage between brainstorming and TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) It leverages the experience of thousands of inventors captured in the form of Inventive Principles Each Inventive Principle is a thought provoking suggestion, which helps you transform mental models of how the system operates. This helps to overcome physiological inertia and form ideas about possible changes in the system. Inventive Principles refocuses the brainstorming every few minutes to keep the ideas fresh and flowing. This leads to more and higher quality ideas.
Guided Brainstorming is a combination of brainstorming with a step-by-step process to produce the best solution:
Employees working in a multi-story office building need to travel between floors. The elevators are old and people often have long waits. Employees get frustrated and complain. Installation of new elevators is costly. Management is considering other options like, moving departments or reorganizing business processes, but these would be disruptive to the business. What can be done?
Step1: Challenge: Employees have to move a lot between office floors, but using elevators causes to long waits and employees complain.
For more explanation about this step go there:
Step 2: Opportunity: Counteract employee complaints
For more explanation about this step go there:
Step3: Ideas: Guided by Inventive Principles brainstorming stimulates the following:
Partitioning suggests: Separate the stops between several elevators. For example, if there are two elevators, one elevator can stop at the odd floors and the other can stop at the even floors.
Use pauses suggests: Provide important information in the waiting area that people don't usually have the time or desire to read (safety instructions, for example)
Use copy suggests: Entertain people while they wait - place a mirror in the waiting area
For more explanation about this step go there:
Step4: Concept: Place something in the waiting area at each floor to entertain people while they wait for the elevators: mirrors, important information, bulletin boards, etc.
For more explanation about this step go there:
The example is intended only to illustrate the steps of the process - nothing more.
One could choose other challenge for brainstorming as you have pointed.
We want to reduce the personnel flow in order to keep higher paid employees on more pertinent (primary) tasking.
The known method is use of designated couriers
What are undesired effects that are connected the known method?
Then we will choose one of three opportunities for further brainstorming:
1 Improve function of reducing the personnel flow
2 Counteract undesired effects that are connected with usage of designated couriers
3 Resolve contradiction: usage of designated couriers should reduce the personnel flow but should not cause to undesired effects.
You can choose any of the opportunities but the third one demands a little bit deeper analysis to formulate a contradiction and experience in using inventive principles for its resolving.
Pair Guided Brainstorming technique
1. Put participants in pairs and let them spend 60-90 minutes generating ideas using the System of Inventive Principles as a guide.
2. Then combine the pairs into the entire brainstorming team in order to share ideas.
3. Finish off with a 15-30 minute traditional brainstorming shouting match to capture any ideas inspired by the collection.
As members or guests of the group you are also invited to see for free narrated presentations in English and Russian:
http://www.gbtriz.com/GB30/Intro/index.html (English)
http://www.gitoolkit.com/GB30ru/Presentation_Files/index.html (Russian)
And then we hope you will visit us here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Products_GBT.htm
and/or here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Products_Level1.htm
Guided Brainstorming Process - Step1: Challenge
The purpose of this step is to clearly and simply define the challenge.
Collect available data, understand the background and answer three basic questions:
• What are you trying to accomplish? (desirable result)
• What is traditional way/method to get this done? (known way/method)
• What roadblocks prevent you from doing it? (undesirable effects)
Sometimes answering the control questions helps to solve the problem without brainstorming!
Write a short Challenge statement:
It is necessary to <desirable result to be got>, but if we use <known way/method > we get <undesirable effect>
Form the Ideal Vision according to the following guidelines:
• Desirable Result is preserved (even improved)
AND
• Undesirable Effect disappears
AND
• System isn't complicated (even becomes simpler)
AND
• New (subsequent) Undesirable Effects do not appear
While designing a vehicle for a mission to the moon, lights were needed for when the vehicle ventured into the dark shadows, but the glass surrounding electric bulbs was not able to withstand the vibration and acceleration force of a rocket launch.
Challenge: What are you trying to accomplish?
We want to protect destruction of filament from oxidation.
What is traditional way/method to get this done?
Build a strong glass bulb around the filament.
What roadblocks prevent you from doing it? Vibration and acceleration force breaks the glass and… exposes the filament to oxidation???
Idea: Wait a minute! There is no oxygen on the moon!
Concept: Use a bare filament and no glass bulb. On the airless moon surface, there is no need to protect the filaments from oxygen.
Guided Brainstorming Process - Step 2: Opportunities
The purpose of this step is to create a list of opportunities to guide brainstorming.
Ask these questions and write opportunity statements using the following templates:
• What do you want to maximize or improve? (desired result)
Describe in the form: Improve < desired result>
• What do you want to reduce or eliminate? (undesirable effect)
Describe in the form: Counteract < undesirable effect >
• What forces you to compromise? (known way/method)
Describe in the form: <known way/method> should produce <desired result> and should not produce <undesirable effect>
Contradiction occurs when condition that eliminates undesirable effect causes to another (subsequent) undesirable effect. Thus we have Useful Result (undesirable effect elimination) but also a Harmful Result (subsequent undesirable effect). In an ideal world we would have it both ways. We would receive 100% of the Useful Result and none of the Harmful Result.
It’s strongly recommended to describe desired result, known way/method and undesirable effect in form of function (activity, process, action or interaction)
Metallic surfaces are chemically coated as follows: the metallic product is placed in a pool filled with a metallic salt solution such as nickel, cobalt, etc. Electricity is passed through the part and the solution. A reduction reaction ensues causing metal from the solution to precipitate onto the surface of the product. A high temperature speeds the process and increases production. Because the solution decomposes at high temperatures, up to 75% of the chemicals are wasted.
Challenge: We increase productivity of the coating process by increasing temperature of the solution but it decomposes at high temperature and is wasted.
Opportunity: Resolve Contradiction: A high temperature should increase productivity and should not cause waste of chemicals The temperature should be high to increase productivity and should be low not to cause waste of chemicals.
Ideas: We can separate contradictory requirements in space by assigning each one to a different location. To apply this we consider if the high temperature is needed everywhere or in some specific places only. In this case, we really need the temperature to be high in the proximity of the parts rather than everywhere in the pool of chemical.
Concept: Heat the product instead of the bath. The product is heated to a high temperature before it is immersed in the solution, and the coating is conducted at a low temperature. In this case, the solution is hot where it is near the product but cold elsewhere. One way of heating the product is by applying an electric current to it during the coating process.
Guided Brainstorming Process - Step 3: Ideas
The purpose of this step is to generate a list of ideas for each opportunity on your list.
System of Inventive Principles
This System of Inventive Principles was especially developed in order to increase efficiency of Guided Brainstorming sessions. It is focused on generation of ideas in order to resolve the problem by usage of available resources (obvious or latent) or creating (deriving or combining) additional resources by using Inventive Principles.
Inventive Principles are divided into five groups according to the criteria of increasing complexity of change that applied to a system when we transit from group to group.
• The first group is usage or ready or derived resources of power/energy, elements/substances or information
• The second group is usage of ready or “derived” time resources
• The third group is usage of ready or “derived” space resources
• The fourth group is usage or changing a structure of the system to use this as a resource
• The fifth group is related to more complex principles that are connected to changing parameters or conditions
Principles Inside each group are ordered according to line of transition from usage of obvious resources, revealing latent ones, "creating" (deriving) needed resources by transformation, combining resources and concentrating (or accumulating) them.
Recommendations of each principle are applied to elements, activities, processes, actions, interactions or environment in order to make easier and guide generation of ideas
It is very seldom when just one Inventive Principle leads to superior ideas. Typically it is combination of 2-3 or more of them applied. That’s why Inventive Principles organized in a system for easy create such combinations. Principles can be easy joined each other and applied together to generate better ideas.
Use inventive principles to generate ideas:
1.Define entities which could be changed in the function:
• Elements and objects that the system works with and on.
• Activities, processes, actions or interactions.
• Environment in and around the system.
2.Begin in the Resources group. Use the inventive principles one by one as hints for idea generation, and then move on to another group.
3.Write down all ideas.
In winter storms in the North Sea ice can rapidly accumulate on ships. The increased weight of the ice capsized the ship.
Challenge: Melting ice by its heating demands a lot of energy
Opportunity: Improve melt ice.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Power/energy: Use environmental water to melt the ice.
Elements: Use fire pumps to water the ice.
Concept: Use the fire pumps to drench the ice with sea water. The slight temperature difference and the high volume of water moved by the pumps remove the ice from the ship
Guided Brainstorming Process - Step 4: Concept
The purpose of this step is to develop solution concepts
A concept is more then just the sum of ideas. A complicated problem is seldom solved by a single idea. Instead, a combination of ideas is usually required; ideas that resolve different parts of the problem.
To develop concepts and address subsequent problems:
1. Evaluate each idea according to the following criteria:
• It should preserve Useful Result
• It should eliminate Harmful Result
• It should not complicate your system
• It should not cause additional harmful results
2. Think of how ideas might be combined so that their drawbacks are canceled out.
3. Select the best concept for implementation.
4. Formulate subsequent problems if the concept requires further development. Return to step “Opportunity" and address these subsequent problems with additional Guided Brainstorming sessions.
Upon implementation of a concept, a “subsequent problem” may block its implementation. This is a typical problem solving scenario. Usually the “subsequent problem” is less difficult to resolve than the original one.
Cryogenic liquids (like nitrogen or helium) are stored in Dewar flasks. During transport, the liquid splashes around inside the container, increasing evaporation, and thus reducing the amount of product delivered.
Challenge: We want to prevent splashing of the cryogenic liquids during its transportation in Dewar flasks but placing a lid cannot be inserted into the narrow mouth of the flask
Opportunity: Resolve the contradiction: Large lid should cover surface of liquid to counteract splashing, but can not be placed in the flask.
Lid should be large to cover surface of liquid and counteract splashing, and should be small because the large lid can not be placed in the flask.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Partitioning: Split lid into pieces (balls) and put inside the flask one by one to float on the surface of the liquid.
Subsequent Problem: With plastic balls on the surface of the liquid, evaporation increases. (As they move, the balls become partially submerged in the liquid and emerge wet, increasing the evaporative surface area of the liquid.)
Challenge: In order to easily insert the lid through Dewar flasks mouth it made of balls but the balls become partially submerged in the liquid and emerge wet, increasing the evaporative surface area of the liquid.
Opportunity: Counteract submerging of the balls.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Integrate Place a small quantity of ferromagnetic material into each ball, then magnetize the balls. The magnetic field causes the balls to float as a solid mass.
Concept: Combine ideas that resolve parts of the problem together into a complete solution:
• Cover the liquid in the flask
• Float small balls on surface to act as cover
• Magnetic material in balls causes them to act as a solid mass
Choose the Right Challenge - Problem Situation Mapping
As it was mentioned in order to define the challenge one has to answer to three questions:
• What are you trying to accomplish? (desirable result)
• What is traditional way/method to get this done? (known way/method)
• What roadblocks prevent you from doing it? (undesirable effects)
But sometimes answering the control questions and further process including brainstorming does not help to resolve the problem. In such a case one of tools that can help is the Problem Situation Mapping (PSM). PSM is part of I-MUST toolkit but it fully compatible with Guided Brainstorming process.
How does work PSM?
Let’s map the following problem situation:
We cannot increase the speed of an aircraft because of the air resistance to the wings.
Let’s first perform the Initial Problem Definition for this problem:
• The undesired effect (UDE): air resistance to the wings
• The element connected with this UDE: the wings
• The function of this element: to support the aircraft body
• The object of the function: the aircraft body.
• The environment: the air around the wings
Now we can proceed with the Problem Situation Mapping.
• The “south” UDE is the UDE which appears when the original problem (original UDE) is solved with known methods.
For example: The original UDE is air resistance to the wings. If we decrease the area of the wings, another UDE will appear: we have to increase the take-off speed of our aircraft... The element connected with this UDE is the airport runway, which will have to be too long...
• The “north” UDE is the UDE, which appears if we remove the element connected with the original UDE.
For example: When we remove the wings, there is no air resistance to the wings, but now we have a new UDE connected with the non-performance of the function of the wings...
• The “west” UDE is the UDE which is the reason for our original UDE.
For example: Maybe the reason for air resistance to wings is the vortex motion of air which is caused by the wing surface... The element, which is connected with this UDE, is part of the surface of the wings...
• The “east” UDE is the UDE which is the result if the original UDE is not eliminated.
For example: The loss of time because of the low speed of our aircraft.
For each UDE (original, north, south, west and east) we can now choose which problem we are going to solve:
• UDE elimination
• UDE measurement or detection
For example: Tool wear is measured by measuring the motor current. Then the adaptive system machinery center changes the parameters of the cutting process. However, overheating of the bearings causes wrong measurement of the tool wear.
• In case of UDE elimination we might, for example, prevent the over-heating of the bearings
• In case of UDE measurement we might measure (or detect) the over-heating of the bearings
Thus, after applying PSM we have a "list of challenges". We choose and define a challenge or few from the list for further brainstorming, depending on the specific situation and basing on resources which we have.
Actually it's more useful to apply PSM before an attempt to define a challenge immediately and trying to brainstorm it.
The System of Inventive Principles - Summary
This System of Inventive Principles was especially developed in order to increase efficiency of Guided Brainstorming sessions. It is focused on generation of ideas in order to resolve the problem by usage of available resources (obvious or latent) or creating (deriving or combining) additional resources by using Inventive Principles.
Inventive Principles are divided into five groups according to the criteria of increasing complexity of change that applied to a system when we transit from group to group.
• The first group is usage or ready or derived resources of power/energy, elements/substances or information
• The second group is usage of ready or “derived” time resources
• The third group is usage of ready or “derived” space resources
• The fourth group is usage or changing a structure of the system to use this as a resource
• The fifth group is related to more complex principles that are connected to changing parameters or conditions
Principles Inside each group are ordered according to line of transition from usage of obvious resources, revealing latent ones, "creating" (deriving) needed resources by transformation, combining resources and concentrating (or accumulating) them.
Recommendations of each principle are applied to elements, activities, processes, actions, interactions or environment in order to make easier and guide generation of ideas
It is very seldom when just one Inventive Principle leads to superior ideas. Typically it is combination of 2-3 or more of them applied. That’s why Inventive Principles organized in a system for easy create such combinations. Principles can be easy joined each other and applied together to generate better ideas.
The System of Inventive Principles now is available for free download here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Guided_Brainstorming_Companion.pdf
The same System of Inventive Principles is also available as apps in six languages for Android and iPhone here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/triz-gb/id530500790?mt=8
and here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gbtriz.triz
The apps cost about nine dollars, but they are more comfortable to use.
They also enable you to capture and write down your ideas, send them by email and customize your app by adding to the app your own examples and notes to each inventive principle.
Below are links to short instructions of using the System of Inventive Principles in various frames:
Lean
TOC
Value Engineering
Six Sigma
SWOT
I-MUST
Fishbone
What does differ this system of inventive principles from all others?
Maybe it isn't modest statement, but actually it is PERIODIC SYSTEM OF INVENTIVE PRINCIPLES that is presented in form of PERIODIC TABLE OF INVENTIVE PRINCIPLES.
I state this because:
1, Inventive principles are divided into five groups (resources, time, space, structure and conditions) that are columns of the table.
2. Inside each group the principles are ordered according to line of transition from usage of obvious resources, revealing latent ones, "creating" (deriving) needed resources by transformation, combining resources and concentrating (or accumulating) them...
3. An "universal" approach to application of each principle is used - recommendations to change to objects, activities, environment
4. Principles that belong to different groups can be easy joined each other like elements that are joined into molecules.
5. Some of such joints are sustainable
Some of the mentioned above points are declared also in other system but, in my opinion remain "declarations"
Usage of the New System of Inventive Principles in Frame of Lean
Step 1.Relate revealed wastes to one of the following groups:
•Resource (materials, energy or information) connected waste
•Time connected waste
•Space connected waste
•Structure connected waste (for example, unnecessary interactions or elements)
•Conditions connected waste
Such a classifying of wastes enables one to address inventive principles form the appropriate group to remove or reduce it.
Step 2.Apply inventive principles to uncover and utilize available resources in order to remove or reduce the wastes:
1.Start from the related to the waste group of principles. Use the inventive principles one by one as hints for idea generation.
2.Define entities which could be changed in your situation (elements, actions, and environment). Apply recommendations suggested by the principle.
3.Typical time is 2-3 minutes per principle - then write down all ideas and go to the next principle
4.After using an appropriate” group of principles it is strongly recommended then to move on to other groups.
Step 3.Finalize your work by evaluating ideas and then assembling them into concepts.
The new system of inventive principles now is available for free download here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Guided_Brainstorming_Companion.pdf
Usage of the New System of Inventive Principles in Frame of TOC
Step 1.Relate revealed key UDEs (undesired effects) or assumptions to one of the following groups:
•Resource (materials, energy or information) connected UDEs or assumptions
•Time connected UDEs or assumptions
•Space connected UDEs or assumptions
•Structure connected UDEs or assumptions (connected, for example, with interactions or elements)
•Conditions connected UDEs or assumptions
Such a classifying of UDEs enables one to address inventive principles form the appropriate group to remove or reduce it.
Step 2.Apply inventive principles to uncover and utilize available resources in order to remove UDEs or assumptions:
1.Start from the related to the UDE group of principles. Use the inventive principles one by one as hints for idea generation.
2.Define entities which could be changed in your situation (elements, actions, and environment). Apply recommendations suggested by the principle.
3.Typical time is 2-3 minutes per principle - then write down all ideas and go to the next principle
4.After using an appropriate” group of principles it is strongly recommended then to move on to other groups.
Step 3.Finalize your work by evaluating ideas and then assembling them into concepts.
The new system of inventive principles now is available for free download here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Guided_Brainstorming_Companion.pdf
Usage of the New System of Inventive Principles in Frame of Value Engineering
Step 1.Relate critical parameter(s) of revealed useful or harmful function(s) to one of the following groups:
•Resource (materials, energy or information) related parameter(s)
•Time related parameter(s)
•Space related parameter(s)
•Structure related parameter(s) (for example, connected to interactions between elements)
•Conditions related parameter(s)
Such a classifying of critical parameter(s) of useful or harmful function enables one to address inventive principles form the appropriate group to improve useful functions or counteract harmful ones.
Step 2.Apply inventive principles to uncover and utilize available resources in order to improve useful or counteract functions:
1Start from the related to the critical parameter group of principles. Use the inventive principles one by one as hints for idea generation.
2Define entities which could be changed in your situation (elements, actions, and environment). Apply recommendations suggested by the principle.
3Typical time is 2-3 minutes per principle - then write down all ideas and go to the next principle
4After using an appropriate” group of principles it is strongly recommended then to move on to other groups.
Step 3.Finalize your work by evaluating ideas and then assembling them into concepts.
The new system of inventive principles now is available for free download here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Guided_Brainstorming_Companion.pdf
Usage of the New System of Inventive Principles in Frame of Six Sigma
Step 1.Relate revealed process variability causes (sources) to one of the following groups:
•Resource (materials, energy or information) connected process variation causes (sources)
•Time connected process variation causes (sources)
•Space connected process variation causes (sources)
•Structure connected process variation causes (for example, unnecessary interactions or elements)
•Conditions connected process variation causes (sources)
Such a classifying of process variation causes (sources) enables one to address inventive principles form the appropriate group to remove or reduce it.
Step 2.Apply inventive principles to uncover and utilize available resources in order to remove or reduce the process variation:
1Start from the related to the waste group of principles. Use the inventive principles one by one as hints for idea generation.
2Define entities which could be changed in your situation (elements, actions, and environment). Apply recommendations suggested by the principle.
3Typical time is 2-3 minutes per principle - then write down all ideas and go to the next principle
4After using an appropriate” group of principles it is strongly recommended then to move on to other groups.
Step 3.Finalize your work by evaluating ideas and then assembling them into concepts.
The new system of inventive principles now is available for free download here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Guided_Brainstorming_Companion.pdf
Usage of the New System of Inventive Principles in Frame of SWOT
Step 1.Relate revealed (and tabled) SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) sources or causes to one of the following groups:
•Resources (business elements, products/services, money, information etc) connected SWOT sources (strengths, opportunities) or causes (weaknesses, threats)
•Time connected SWOT sources (strengths, opportunities) or causes (weaknesses, threats)
•“Space” (market or position on the market, for example) connected SWOT sources (strengths, opportunities) or causes (weaknesses, threats)
•Structure connected SWOT sources (strengths, opportunities) or causes (weaknesses, threats) - - for example, business elements and/or interactions
•Conditions or parameters connected SWOT sources (strengths, opportunities) or causes (weaknesses, threats) – for example, business or innovation culture or activities of competitors)
Such a classifying of SWOT sources (strengths, opportunities) or causes (weaknesses, threats) enables one to address inventive principles form the appropriate group to improve / increase (strengths, opportunities) or remove / reduce (weaknesses, threats) them.
Step 2.Apply inventive principles to uncover and utilize available resources in order to improve / increase strengths and opportunity or remove / reduce weaknesses and threats:
1Start from the related to the SWOT source or cause group of principles. Use the inventive principles one by one as hints for idea generation.
2Define entities which could be changed in your situation (elements, activities and environment). Apply recommendations suggested by the principle.
3Typical time is 2-3 minutes per principle - then write down all ideas and go to the next principle
4After using an appropriate” group of principles it is strongly recommended then to move on to other groups.
Step 3.Finalize your work by evaluating ideas and then assembling them into concepts.
The new system of inventive principles now is available for free download here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Guided_Brainstorming_Companion.pdf
Usage of the New System of Inventive Principles in Frame of I-MUST
Step 1.Define UDE(s) (undesired effects) :
•Direct UDEs appear if something does not satisfy us in the existing system
•“Derived” UDEs appear it there isn’t system for performing of desired activity – in such a case we define what won’t satisfy us if we will use more or less suitable system (“derived” UDEs)
Step 2.Relate revealed UDEs (undesired effects) to one of the following groups:
•Resource (materials, energy or information) connected UDEs
•Time connected UDEs
•Space connected UDEs
•Structure connected UDEs (connected, for example, with interactions or elements)
•Conditions connected UDEs
Such a classifying of UDEs enables one to address inventive principles form the appropriate group to remove or reduce it.
Step 3.Apply inventive principles to uncover and utilize available resources in order to remove UDEs:
1Start from the related to the UDE group of principles. Use the inventive principles one by one as hints for idea generation.
2Define entities which could be changed in your situation (elements, actions, and environment). Apply recommendations suggested by the principle.
3Typical time is 2-3 minutes per principle - then write down all ideas and go to the next principle
4After using an appropriate” group of principles it is strongly recommended then to move on to other groups.
Step 4.Finalize your work by evaluating ideas and then assembling them into concepts.
The new system of inventive principles now is available for free download here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Guided_Brainstorming_Companion.pdf
The Fishbone Diagram and the New System of Inventive Principles
Fishbone diagram (another name is Ishikawa’s diagram) is intended to help us to identify the cause and effect relationship that exists in our system.
Modification of this approach with TRIZ GB enables one to increase its efficiency either for innovative (so called reverse Fishbone) and diagnostic problem solving (direct Fishbone).
In this case in the head of the modified fishbone diagram is placed what we need to accomplish (in case of innovative problem) or what we need to explain (in cause of diagnostic problem). As bones of the fishbone diagram instead of the generic causes (Machines, People, Processes, Environment, Money and Measurement) we will use the five groups of TRIZ GB principles: Resources, Time, Space, Structure, Conditions and Parameters.
Once we put what we need to accomplish or explain in the head of the fishbone diagram we ask ourselves, what do we need to use or change in our system in order to get this result?
Various ideas generated with TRIZ GB principles will then be split between the bones, helping us in assembling solution concept or (in case of diagnostic problem) hypothesis to be checked.
The mentioned above TRIZ GB inventive principles is available for free download here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Guided_Brainstorming_Companion.pdf
The same inventive principles are also available as apps in six languages for Android and iPhone here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/triz-gb/id530500790?mt=8
and here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gbtriz.triz
The apps cost about nine dollars, but they are more comfortable to use.
They also enable you to capture and write down your ideas, send them by email and customize your app by adding to the app your own examples and notes to each inventive principle.
A Good Support for Problem Solving and Generating New Ideas - I-MUST Inside
The new system of inventive principles now is available for free download here:
http://www.gbtriz.com/Guided_Brainstorming_Companion.pdf
It is a good support for generating solution ideas for various methods like Value Engineering, Theory of Constraint, Lean Six Sigma etc.
The same inventive principles are also available as apps in six languages for Android and iPhone here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/triz-gb/id530500790?mt=8
and here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gbtriz.triz
The apps cost about nine dollars, but they are more comfortable to use.
They also enable you to capture and write down your ideas, send them by email and customize your app by adding to the app your own examples and notes to each inventive principle.
Possibility to add examples in order to customize your app brings extra-effect - you can write down also various nuances of usage for each principle during a training, for example. Thus Android tablets and iPad apps (I am not so sure about smart-phones because of their relatively small screens) might become good training platform for Guided Brainstorming approach.
GBC (Guided Brainstorming Companion) for PCs - I-MUST Inside
GBC (Guided Brainstorming Companion) was released a few days ago.
It is more expensive than nine-dollar apps for Android and iPhone, but it has a lot of additional features like one hour e-learning and about three hundred examples (they are actually micro-case studies, that includes brief description of problem solving process) to mention a few.
GBC provides great support to facilitators and participants of TRIZ guided brainstorming
GBC includes detailed instruction of the Guided Brainstorming process, System of Inventive Principles and more than three hundreds mini-cases that briefly describe problem solving way from challenge to concept and especially usage of Inventive Principles to generate solution ideas
GBC is intended for:
• Brainstorming facilitators to increase efficiency of brainstorming sessions by guiding them with System of Inventive Principles
• TOC, Lean, Six Sigma facilitators to increase problem solving abilities of their teams and bring better results
• Innovation and problem solving trainers and coaches as collection of mini-cases to support their courses
• All those individuals that want to advance their personal creativity, inventiveness and problem solving abilities
GBC includes following features:
• Challenge definition instructions
• Opportunity formulation instructions
• System of Inventive Principles with more than three hundred detailed (challenge->opportunity->idea->concept) examples of their implementation
• Possibility of making notes and their capture
• One hour e-learning of the Guided Brainstorming Process Basics
Work of individuals with GBC develops following skills:
• Using GBC software to resolve relatively simple inventive problems by application Inventive Principles
• Evaluating and combining ideas into workable solution concepts
• Identifying and resolving subsequent problems
• Ability to participate in complex projects under the supervision of a Guided Brainstorming facilitator
;
Micro-Case of the Day (Guided Brainstorming Companion includes more than 300 such micro-cases with illustrations from different domains)
Preliminary action
Improve function by performing something in advance with:
• Elements and objects that the system works with and on.
• Activity, process, action or interaction.
• Environment in and around the system.
Write down all ideas.
Cattle feed consists of various cut grasses in a certain proportion, which are mixed with special equipment. Producing the grass mixture by sowing the same proportion of various seeds together will not produce the proper mixture due to certain types of grass undermining the ability of other grasses to grow.
Challenge: Efficiently prepare grass mixture
Opportunity: Improve grow grass in correct proportion.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Preliminary Action: Sow the seeds of each grass in strips across the field, varying the width of each in proportion to the desired final mixture.
Another dimension: Harvest the grass by cutting across the strips.
Concept: Sow the grasses in narrow parallel strips and harvest across the strips. The grasses will be mixed in the receiving bin of the mower.
Another dimension
Counteract a function by utilizing additional dimensions as space resource:
• Consider multi-level composition of elements, put them on their side or on an angle, or use of an opposite surfaces.
• Transition the activity, process, action or interaction from a point to linear, from linear to a surface, from surface to a volume.
• Find and use additional dimensions in the environment in and around the system.
Write down all ideas.
Airplanes need long landing gear on the wings to accommodate large propellers, but long landing gear is heavy.
Challenge: Make landing gear lighter.
Opportunity: Counteract long landing gear.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Another dimension: Change the structure of the wings to move the propeller up to provide ground clearance.
Partitioning: Segment the wings to provide low clearance at the landing gear and high clearance at the fuselage.
Concept: Designers at the Vought company used bent wings instead of the linear designs used on most other aircraft, in their design of the F4-U Corsair. The “inverted gull wings” of the Corsair shortened the length of landing gear while still having the wings meet the fuselage at a right angle – preserving the aerodynamics.
Matching
Resolve a contradiction by matching functions or structures within a system:
• Match elements, links or interactions in the system (shapes, structures, properties, etc.)
• Synchronize activities, processes, actions or interactions in time (for example, resonance) and match in space.
• Match system interaction with environment by changing its properties (inert or active environment).
Write down all ideas.
To break up rock masses, boreholes are drilled and then filled with pulsed, high-pressure fluid. This consumes a lot of energy.
Challenge: Improve breaking rocks.
Opportunity: Resolve the contradiction: Apply pulses should produce break up rock, and should not produce consume energy.
Pulses should be strong to break up rock and should be weak to counteract consume energy.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Matching: Synchronize the pulses of the high-pressure fluid with the natural frequency of the rock mass.
Concept: When synchronized subsequent pulses add to one another and triple the fracturing effectiveness of the process
Use Time
Time resources are time intervals before, during (pauses) and after the function performance.
In order to improve a function:
• Use available time resources.
• Modify processes in order to obtain new time resources (for example, transition from continuous to periodic action).
Apply inventive principles from this group one by one and write down all ideas.
When thin pieces are being joined by spot welding, overheating can cause deformation and weakening. To avoid this, the temperature in the area of the weld must be controlled, but temperature measurement in proximity to welding electrodes can be difficult.
Challenge: How to control welding?
Opportunity: Improve measure weld temperature.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Use Pauses: Measure temperature between weld pulses.
Derived: Dissimilar metals form a thermocouple - generated electrical potential depends on temperature.
Concept: Copper electrodes of the welder and the steel sheets to be welded form a thermocouple, so thermoelectric measurements of weld temperature can be taken between the welding pulses.
Nesting
Improve a function by placing one entity inside another:
• Transform elements or their composition into nested configuration.
• Insert one activity, process, action or interaction into another.
• Transition to a nested environment.
Write down all ideas.
Banks need to be located convenient to their customers. This means having many branch offices, but building many stand alone buildings is very expensive.
Challenge: Expand bank locations without large investment in construction.
Opportunity: Improve construct bank.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Nesting: Locate the bank inside another building
Integrate: Combine banking and shopping.
Concept: Locate the bank inside the store. It costs less to build a bank inside an existing structure and creates more customer traffic for the store.
Copy
Resolve the contradiction by using a model or copy:
• Replace the system or some of its elements with models or copies.
• Emulate activity, process, action or interaction.
• Simulate environmental conditions.
Write down all ideas.
It is necessary to track the health of snakes by measuring their length (growth). To measure poisonous snakes is dangerous.
Challenge: Safely measure snakes.
Opportunity: Resolve the contradiction: Measure snakes should produce collect data, and should not produce injure workers.
Measure snakes should be performed to provide collect data and should not be performed to counteract injure workers.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Copy: Take a photo of the snake.
Post process time: Measure the length of the snake in the photo.
Concept: Take a photograph of the snake along with an object of known length such as a ruler. Then a curve-meter can be used to determine the length of the snake by measuring the photograph of the snake.
Integrate
Counteract a function by integrating something in the system to get a synergetic affect (1 + 1 > 2 rule):
• Integrate two or more elements or systems.
• Combine activities, processes, actions or interactions (in whole or part).
• Combine different environments or integrate additional properties into the existing environment.
Write down all ideas.
Traditionally, fish were caught and brought to port and sold to a cannery which cleaned and canned the fish. This caused a significant time delay decreasing the quality of the canned fish.
Challenge: How to improve quality of canned fish?
Opportunity: Counteract delay in canning fish.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Integrate: Combine fishing and canning in same place.
Concept: Large fish processing boats are developed that clean and can the fish while fish are being caught.
Post process time
Improve function by performing something post process with:
• Elements and objects that the system works with and on.
• Activity, process, action or interaction.
• Environment in and around the system.
Write down all ideas.
Tourism business includes not only the various attractions of the destination, but also the sale of memorabilia.
Challenge: How to increase sales of souvenirs.
Opportunity: Improve exposure of souvenirs.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Post-process time: At end of tour, force tourists to walk through souvenir shop in order to exit.
Space: Locate gift shop at the end of tour.
Concept: Convert tourists favorable impressions from the tour into souvenir sales
Mediator
Counteract a function by using an entity as a mediator:
• Insert a buffer or an action transmitting element into the system.
• Introduce an intermediate action into an activity or process.
• Use an environmental buffer.
Write down all ideas.
Light bulbs made with tungsten filaments thinner than a human hair are easily broken and difficult to wind into coils.
Challenge: Produce filaments.
Opportunity: Counteract break the filament.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Mediator: Add a mediator that will support the winding process.
Derived: Use aluminum rod and chemically dissolve it after winding.
Concept: The spiral is coiled onto a thin aluminum rod, after which the rod is dissolved in a chemical solution leaving the tungsten unharmed.
Intensify
Insufficient elements, energy and information resources can be concentrated or accumulated.
In order to improve a function:
• Concentrate resources in a specific area.
• Accumulate resources over time.
• Derive and/or combine concentrated or accumulated resources.
Write down all ideas.
In the past, since the pods are non-uniform in shape and size, the stem and seeds of sweet peppers were manually removed. This is a labor intensive, slow process.
Challenge: How to automate removal of seeds and stems?
Opportunity: Improve remove seeds and stems.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Intensify: Consider concentration of forces inside the peppers to remove seeds and stems.
Power/Energy: Use air pressure to create forces inside the pepper.
Stretch out: Slowly increase the external air pressure, and then quickly drop it to create internal force.
Concept: Place the peppers in an air-tight container, in which pressure is gradually increased. Compressed air penetrates into the peppers, and the pressure inside and outside the peppers equalizes. The pressure in the container is then dropped quickly; the peppers fracture at the top, rapidly ejecting the stem and seeds.
Accelerate
Improve the function by accelerating an activity, process, action or interaction to:
• Rush through risky or dangerous phases of the process.
• Create additional time resources.
• Get positive effects on elements, objects and environment that the system works with and on.
Write down all ideas.
Opportunity: Improve freezing process.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Accelerate: Rapidly cool the food to accelerate the freezing process.
Controllability
Improve a function by increasing controllability of the system:
• Insert controllable element into the system; insert additives into elements to provide control.
• Introduce feedback into the activity, process, action or interaction.
• Control external conditions and system interaction with the environment.
Write down all ideas.
Misaligned surgical sutures can cause significant scars or organ damage. Suture designs are often marked on tissue before a surgical incision is made to guide the suture. Blood or other liquids often obscure the pattern during the suturing process.
Challenge: Provide a reliable suturing guide.
Opportunity: Improve guide visibility.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Controllability: Add luminescent alignment markers.
Energy: Use UV light in operating room to make guides visible.
Concept: To make the alignment guides more visible, use a luminescent marking material. A surgical lamp that generates ultraviolet light makes the luminescent marks visible. These guide marks are not visible in normal light after surgery.
Dynamism
Counteract a function by making the system or its surrounding dynamic, adjustable or changeable:
• Increase flexibility of elements or links in the system; make them movable.
• Turn activities, processes, actions or interactions into changeable ones.
• Transition to an environment with adjustable properties.
Write down all ideas.
The process of balancing flywheels is iterative and challenging. Further, the balance is typically limited to a narrow band of rotation speeds.
Challenge: Balance the flywheel for all speeds.
Opportunity: Counteract iterative re-balancing.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Dynamism: Instead of manually balancing the flywheel, insert movable element so that the flywheel balances itself.
Elements: Add low cost steel balls in an annular tube which will move to balance the wheel.
Concept: A self-balancing flywheel can be made from a steel or aluminum tube formed into a hollow annulus. Steel balls are placed in the annulus to fill from one-eighth to one-half its length, and the tube is flooded with silicon oil. As they rotate, the balls are forced into a position in which they counter-balance the system, eliminating vibrations.
Localize
Resolve a contradiction by localization into a specific place:
• Place elements or their parts in a specific place.
• Perform activity, process, action or interaction fully or partly in a specific place.
• Change or substitute the environment in a specific place.
Write down all ideas.
Running shoes must endure significant stress and wear. In addition, they must fit properly to avoid injury to the wearer. Each of these must be achieved without significant costs in materials.
Challenge: Design comfortable running shoes.
Opportunity: Resolve the contradiction: Custom shoes should produce proper fit and should not produce high costs.
Custom shoes should exist to provide proper fit and should not exist to counteract high costs.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Localize: Separate in space - confine the fit function to a portion of the entire shoe.
Concept: Use inserts to provide custom fit in running shoes. This reduces the amount of material that must be inventoried to provide custom fit.
Asymmetry
Counteract a function by utilizing transition to asymmetry as resource:
• Transform elements or their composition asymmetrically by changing their form or structure.
• Insert asymmetry into activity, process, action or interaction.
• Transform interactions between the system and its environment into an asymmetric relationship.
Write down all ideas.
In large companies or large office complexes, traffic into and out of the area at start and end of work days creates congestion.
Challenge: Reduce amount of cars during rush hour.
Opportunity: Counteract traffic peaks.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Asymmetry: Allow staff to start and finish work at different times.
Partitioning: Divide the work force into sections with different work hours to reduce volume at specific times.
Concept: Stagger start and end times for different groups of workers by as little as 15 minutes to reduce peak traffic loads around the complex.
Change Conditions or Parameters
Conditions and parameters are quantitative and qualitative variables of the system operation.
In order to improve a function:
• Change system parameters and conditions.
• Combine different changes in conditions or parameters.
Apply inventive principles from this group one by one and write down all ideas.
A vacuum cleaner removes dust from narrow slots inaccessible with ordinary nozzles.
Challenge: Improve cleaning narrow crevices.
Opportunity: Improve remove dust.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Change condition: Make dust more mobile.
Inversion: Blow instead of vacuuming.
Integrate: Combine blowing and vacuuming.
Concept: The air stream produced in the nozzle raises the dust from the surface or slot, after which the nozzle sucks the dust into the vacuum cleaner
Copy
Counteract a function by using a model or copy:
• Replace the system or some of its elements with models or copies.
• Emulate activity, process, action or interaction.
• Simulate environmental conditions.
Write down all ideas.
When barbers learned how to use a straight razor, there was a danger of cutting their subjects.
Challenge: Train barbers without putting customers at risk.
Opportunity: Counteract cutting customer.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Copy: Use a model of the subject.
Disposable: Use a balloon to simulate customer.
Concept: Train novice barbers using shaving cream applied to a balloon. If the barber makes a mistake, the balloon bursts.
Localize
Improve a function by localizing into a specific place:
• Place elements or their parts in a specific place.
• Perform activity, process, action or interaction fully or partly in a specific place.
• Change or substitute the environment in a specific place.
Write down all ideas.
Shopping for books often takes time, and can be boring for kids who are shopping with their parents. This can lead to disruptive behavior of the kids.
Challenge: Prevent kids from disrupting other shoppers.
Opportunity: Improve entertain kids.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Localize: Put kids in specific entertaining area.
Partitioning: Arrange the bookstore with a separate kids attractive books section
Concept: Kids are occupied with books of interest to them and do not disrupt other shoppers. Extra benefit for the bookstore - children prompt parents to buy children's books also.
Intensify
Insufficient elements, energy and information resources can be concentrated or accumulated.
In order to resolve a contradiction:
• Concentrate resources in a specific area.
• Accumulate resources over time.
• Derive and/or combine concentrated or accumulated resources.
Write down all ideas.
In small aircraft the range of the plane can be increased by reducing the total weight. One area that can be addressed is the battery weight. However, to start the engine, the battery should rotate the engine and supply power to the ignition circuit, but in a small battery there is insufficient power available to do both.
Challenge: How to start the engine with a small battery?
Opportunity: Resolve the contradiction: Battery rotate engine should produce start engine but should not produce insufficient power to ignition.
Rotate engine should be performed to start engine and should not be performed to counteract insufficient power to ignition.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Intensify: Accumulate energy in something else and apply it to rotate the engine.
Elements: Use existing flywheel as accumulate energy.
Separate in time: Use the battery initially to rotate flywheel, then switch battery to power ignition circuit, and engage flywheel to rotate engine.
Concept: Use the battery to spin the engine flywheel. In this way the amount of energy available to start the engine is intensified without adding weight to the aircraft. That energy can be applied in a high-power burst to start the engine.
Inversion
Improve a function by doing something opposite:
• Change properties or parameters of the system or its elements by opposite ones: turned upside down or inside out, movable instead of immovable, cold instead of hot, etc.
• Replace activity, process, action or interaction by the opposite ones, or reverse their sequence; substitute internal activities with external ones, or vice-versa.
• Substitute properties of the system's surroundings by opposite ones.
Write down all ideas.
Restaurant workers uncork many wine bottles using traditional coil tools, which is difficult and takes valuable time.
Challenge: Simplify uncorking wine bottles.
Opportunity: Improve remove cork.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Inversion: Substitute external force with internal one. Push cork instead of pull.
Derived: Convert manual effort to compressed air and push out the cork.
Disposable: Use an inexpensive disposable pressure source - like a CO2 cartridge.
Concept: Instead of pulling the cork, push it out using pressure. A pressure gun, which has a sharp hollow needle at the end of it, is pushed through the cork. Gas under pressure from the gun then forces the cork out of the bottle. A carbon dioxide cartridge can be used to supply the pressure limiting the effort required by the restaurant workers.
Post process time
Resolve the contradiction by performing something post process with:
• Elements and objects that the system works with and on.
• Activity, process, action or interaction.
• Environment in and around the system.
Write down all ideas.
Fertilizer should be applied when seeds germinate. Germination occurs when the soil reaches an optimum temperature. This is difficult to predict, since large quantities of fertilizer cannot be applied instantaneously, and the soil temperature keeps changing.
Challenge: Apply fertilizer at precise time when needed.
Opportunity: Resolve the contradiction: Fertilize the field should produce improve seed germination, and should not produce lost fertilizer.
Fertilize the field should be performed to improve seed germination and should not be performed to counteract lost fertilizer.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Post-process time: Apply fertilizer when convenient (ahead of germination), but have it dissolve later.
Separate on condition: Fertilizer should be solid when applied, and dissolve when proper temperature is reached.
Derived: Encapsulate the fertilizer in a substance which dissolves at a certain temperature.
Concept: Pack the fertilizer in capsules that dissolve in the soil at a specific temperature, and apply it to the soil ahead of time.
Accelerate
Counteract a function by accelerating activity, process, action or interaction to:
• Rush through risky or dangerous phases of the process.
• Create additional time resources.
• Get positive effects on elements, objects and environment that the system works with and on.
Write down all ideas.
Removing a band-aid slowly can be painful.
Challenge: Remove band-aid without pain.
Opportunity: Counteract create pain.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Accelerate: Rush through the painful process by quickly removing the band-aid.
Excessive action: Apply forces in excess of what is needed to accelerate removal.
Concept: Quickly remove band-aids to reduce pain of removal.
Excessive action
Counteract a function by providing excess and then removing the remainder.
• Provide more than 100% of quantity (or exceed other parameters) and then remove the rest.
• Overdo activities, processes, actions or interactions and then correct.
• Overload system interaction with environment and then suppress unnecessary ones.
Write down all ideas.
Airlines lose money if they fly planes with empty seats, but some travelers change their travel plans at the last minute.
Challenge: Avoid lost revenue from empty seats.
Opportunity: Counteract fly with empty seats.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Excessive action: Sell more tickets than there are seats on the plane (overbooking). Provide alternate arrangements for the excess passengers.
Counteract: Compensate negative reactions of overbooked passengers by offering upgrade to first class on a later flight or free travel later.
Concept: Use statistical averages to determine the amount of seats to overbook. If not enough travelers change their plans, offer compensation to passengers willing to give up their seat for a later flight.
Use resources
Resources are energy, elements and information in the system and its environment.
In order to resolve a contradiction:
• Check which of the contradictory requirements is satisfied through existing resources, then try to satisfy the other contradictory requirement through the remaining resources.
• Uncover and use latent resources.
• Derive and combine resources.
Apply inventive principles from this group and write down all ideas.
Testing powerful turbo-generators under maximum load requires a high capacity resistive load. It is costly and complex to dissipate this much energy at the manufacturing facility, yet when testing is carried out at the power station, it is difficult to repair the faults there.
Challenge: Conduct testing of turbo-generators.
Opportunity: Resolve the contradiction: Testing turbo generators should produce assure performance, and should not produce add costly equipment.
Testing should be performed to provide assure performance and should not be performed to counteract add costly equipment.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Elements: Satisfy contradictory requirements - replace the resistive load with another turbo-generator.
Concept: Instead of using a high cost test load, another turbo-generator can be used, and both generators can be tested under maximum load.
Vaccination
Improve a function by making the system tolerant, insensitive to undesirable changes:
• Insert neutralizing additives into system or its elements, or perform preliminary change opposite to undesirable one.
• Perform preliminary activity, process, action or interaction to prevent, counteract or compensate undesirable activities.
• Modify or substitute environment to make the system resistant to undesirable change.
Write down all ideas.
Winter sports like ice hockey require a cold environment.
Challenge: How to play hockey in a warm environment?
Opportunity: Improve resistance ice melting.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Vaccination: Substitute the environment around the ice.
Isolate: Create a structure around the ice to keep warm air away.
Concept: Create an ice arena. Provide an environment to keep ice frozen and isolate it from warm air and sunlight.
Partial action
Counteract a function by performing it partially rather than completely (80/20 rule).
• Use partially finished or unfinished elements or structures and complete it in another time or place.
• Perform activities, processes, actions or interactions partially and complete them when and where it necessary.
• Transition to partial system interaction with the environment and return to full mode up on condition.
Write down all ideas.
Glass is very brittle and cannot be cut by conventional cutting or sawing techniques without breaking.
Challenge: How to cut glass?
Opportunity: Counteract break glass.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Partial action: Score the glass instead of cutting, then break it along the score line.
Concept: Scoring the glass creates a stress riser in the glass. When the a bending force is applied to the glass it breaks along the score line.
Asymmetry
Resolve a contradiction by utilizing transition to asymmetry as resource:
• Transform elements or their composition asymmetrically by changing their form or structure.
• Insert asymmetry into activity, process, action or interaction.
• Transform interactions between the system and its environment into an asymmetric relationship.
Write down all ideas.
A funnel allows pouring of large quantities into a small opening. However, powdered material tends to jam flow of material through it.
Challenge: Reduce funnel jamming.
Opportunity: Resolve the contradiction: Use large inlet should produce easy to fill and should not produce jam flow.
Funnel inlet should be large to provide easy to fill and should be small to counteract jam flow.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Asymmetry: Separate in space - increase funnel inlet in one dimension to allow easy fill, but keep it small in the other to counteract jamming.
Concept: Make the funnel asymmetrical such that on one side the angle approaches 90 degrees and on the other side it is lower, perhaps 45-60 degrees. The vertical (90 degree) side of the funnel will not bridge.
Change Structure
Structure is the arrangement of system elements, links and interactions.
In order to improve a function:
• Rearrange existing elements, links or interactions in the system.
• Add, remove or change elements, links or interactions in the system.
• Change how the system or its elements relate to their environment.
Apply inventive principles from this group one by one and write down all ideas.
When threads of different colors are produced, extruder dyes, spindles and other parts of the system must be cleaned and changed. This is costly and produces extended periods of machine down time.
Challenge: Produce a wide variety of threads without machine down time.
Opportunity: Improve production "run-time" of each color.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Derived: The human eye will integrate combinations of 3 primary colors (red, green & blue) into unique colors.
Partitioning: Produce only separate thread fibers in primary colors.
Integrate: Combine threads from primary colors in different proportions to obtain unique color.
Concept: Make the thread from red, green, blue and transparent fibers. Combine necessary primary colors in the proper proportions to produce a wide variety colors from a small variety of colored fibers.
Isolate
Resolve a contradiction by isolating the system from undesirable changes:
• Introduce isolative permanent or renewable (self-recoverable) elements into the system to prevent undesirable changes.
• Perform activity, process, action or interaction to isolate the system from undesirable activities.
• Modify or substitute environment or its parts to isolate the system.
Write down all ideas.
Molten slag is transported from a blast furnace to a slag processing installation in ladles on railway tracks. During transport, the slag cools and a hard crust forms on its surface, which makes unloading difficult and expensive.
Challenge: Simplify unloading of slag.
Opportunity: Resolve the contradiction: Deliver molten slag should produce process slag, and should not produce crust on slag.
Deliver molten slag should be performed to provide process slag and should not be performed to counteract crust on slag.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Isolate: If the slag can be isolated from the cooling effects of the air, the crust will not form
Elements: Create a foam from the slag by adding water.
Concept: The foam layer is created by adding water to the hot slag as it flows into the ladle, thus insulating the slag from the cooler air. When the ladle is unloaded, the foam is partially melted by the hot liquid slag.
Partitioning
Improve a function by dividing something into subsets:
• Partition the system or its elements into independent parts.
• Divide activity, process or action into sub-procedures (compartmentalize).
• Separate environment into sub-environments.
Write down all ideas.
In the airline industry, flying planes with empty seats decreases profitability.
Challenge: Increase profitability.
Opportunity: Improve ticket sales.
Ideas: - Inventive Principles stimulate the following:
Partitioning: Divide customers into different groups based on needs (price, convenience, flexibility, etc.). For example, business customers require schedule flexibility, value pre-boarding and executive lounges. Families traveling on vacations are very price sensitive and are willing to give up frills for low cost.
Matching: Offer different price and services based on the needs of the various groups.
Concept: Sort the customers into groups and offer different prices and services tailored to each group.
Hiring Texts (I’m not sure that they all are mine)
Human capital is rather rented (like cars, buildings or land) than owned by companies.
That's why it cannot be considered as asset.
Do you fire for character or skills?
-In your company/institution people are hired and fired for character - what does this mean?
This means that your company/institution isn't able to evaluate character correctly.
-In your company/institution people are hired and fired for skills - what does this mean?
This means that your company/institution isn't able to evaluate skills correctly.
-In your company/institution people are hired for character and fired for skills - what does this mean?
This means that your company/institution should take into account skills in addition to character.
-In your company/institution people are hired for skills and fired for character-- what does this mean?
This means that your company/institution should take into account character in addition to skills.
Interviewer (looking at CV):
- OK, we will pay you $ 200 K per year
Interviewee (does not believe to his luck):
- You will not regret!
Interviewer (still looking at CV):
- You may also feel free not to come to the office and work from your home, but anyway we will provide you with company's car. We also will cover some of your additional expenses like apartment rent, phone, municipal taxes etc. What do you say?
Interviewee (with doubt):
- Do you tell me lies?
Interviewer (still looking at CV):
- Yes, but you have started first...:
A recruiter that does not try to understand unreadable (bad written) CVs misses some good candidates
A candidate that sends unreadable (bad written) CVs (does not matter what is the reason) misses good jobs
By the way, according to Pareto ratio only 1 of 5 engineers/scientists will perform his/her job properly and less than one of ten will perform a good job.
Why do all you demand from recruiters a better ratio?
Is it impossible?
Accept the fact that most of them are not professionals and build job finding strategy according to this.
Pareto's ratio (20/80) works "always and everywhere":) By the way, some people are sure that in nowadays this ratio is close to 10/90. What does this mean? This means that only one of ten (of five in the best case) HR "specialists" is more or less professional. Look at all these idiot-oriented advices how to pass an interview in order to get a dream job and you will understand what I mean. Some HR "specialists" really believe in those their recommendations (how to get a job) that they give to others. Breaking "recommended" rules of behavior by a candidate while meeting with such "specialists" influences on them (HR "specialists") like the red color on a bull.:)
Everybody wants to save his/her time and cause to other side to work harder…
Recruiters want that candidates will match CVs to jobs in order not to waste their time for reading understanding and sorting.
And candidates want to have a universal CV for all types of jobs in order not to waste their time for writing and rewriting.
Who will win?
Of course, those that are closer to the shutter and they are... recruiters
To acquire some skills, you need days or weeks.
There are skills that you need months to acquire.
Some skills demand years and some you will never acquire...
This relates either to hard and soft skills.
If you are lack of skills that demand years to acquire company for sure won't hire you.
The problem is that companies don't define skills of candidates according to:
a. Must, need, wanted
b. Week, months, years, born with (to acquire)
No one neglects interview and references simply they are not enough.
And majority of "interviewers" have fuzzy understanding what should be checked during interview and how.
By the way, personality does matter - no one wants to work with a jerk even the talented one.
The problem is that companies don't define demanded skills of candidates basing on "work to be done", don't rank defined skills (must, need, wanted) and do not evaluate time (days, weeks, months, years etc.) to acquire missed skills.
Thus, a good candidate that for sure is able to perform a work but lacking a wanted skill taking days or weeks to acquire might not to be invited for interview.
Let' say that employees are cost… with "a human face"
1. There are employees that are costs.
2. There are employees that are assets.
3. There are employees that are both – costs and assets.
The wisdom of any CEO, thus, is to know the difference. Unfortunately, some CEOs don't and cut assets and develop costs
A bad company works like a water filter. Good managers (the clean water) pass through it and "contaminants" are caught
Lou Adler's approach somehow reminds me methodology of course building according to training elements.
According to this methodology in order to teach managers one should start by determining various "work modes" of the best managers and divide them (working modes) into operations and operation steps that are called "training elements".
As far as the task isn’t building a course, candidates are checked if they are fit to previously determined "training elements".
Recruiters are in situation that is worse than your one. If they send you to the Hell - you can go. They don’t have such a place to go there. Therefore if you send them to the Hell - they should remain where they are and the person that should go is... you. :)
Remember this joke before defining what business of a recruiter is.
In order to look different, I would send a fax or even a letter nowadays
Emails are easy to send but are also easy to sort with help of software and ...delete.
Of course this will add additional work to typist in order to insert you into the system if you are worthy, but who cares:)
By the way, it is one of short term possible solutions to force HR employees to read CVs.
And if you all of us will send copies from manually written CVs this might be a long term solution.
Take it for free…
"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
Confucius
The first point is the most important and... hard to implement because demands describing any job (suggested and current) as a set of "performance modes" (performance-based building blocks) with further dividing them into "performance elements" - there are not a lot of people in the world that are able to do this.
Nevertheless, I agree that describing suggested jobs and jobs that potential candidates already perform as a set of "performance modes" and "performance elements" sometimes will be done (because it should be!) and "dehumanized" hiring system will find the best matches.
Of course, the "performance elements" themselves should be also evaluated according to time that is needed to "acquire" them - days, weeks, months, years...
By the way, such an approach (describing suggested jobs and jobs that potential candidates already perform as a set of "performance modes" and "performance elements") somehow reminds me method of building courses according to so called "training elements". According to the method any trained subject should be taken from practice of the best specialists in the subject and, then, described in a form "training modes" in further dividing the mode into "training elements". The method is intended to decrease the gap between what is taught and what is needed to be taught. Basic ideas of the methods might be (and were!) implemented for new product development approaches.
I think that the new world of work should adopt so called "Flipped Learning Model" turning it into “Flipped Working Model”.
Ideality
The ideal manager is the manager that does not exists but his/her functions are performed:)
From this starting point one can start apply so called trimming technique - manager might be "removed" if:
1.No objects of his/her activity
2.Objects of his/her activity perform it themselves
3.Activity is performed by other elements of company or institution
Problem solving line
Seek for resources (obvious or latent), accumulate or concentrate insufficient resources, combine or transform resources in order to... Innovation try principles that will hint you how to do this.
Beforehand, choose "the right problem" using the system approach, formulate it correctly using dialectic approach, define the most promising direction of problem solving using "ideality" approach,
Then, as it was mentioned above, use resources in order to support the direction to an ideal solution" and use "principles" (patterns that reflect the world problem solving wisdom) in order to know what to do with resources and to find ideas.
Then again use ideality approach to evaluate idea and system approach to define so called subsequent problems.
As far as "ideal system is such a system that DOES NOT EXIST but its functions are performed" - it cannot exist by definition: Once a system becomes an ideal it disappears.
Resolving a problem we have to define four demands of IFR:
1. Protecting useful effect
2. Removing undesired effect;
3. Non-complicating the system;
4. Non-causing additional undesired effects;
After
After finding a solution concept - assess if it complies to these demands.
Assess ideality according to the ideality principles:
1. The result isn't needed;
2. The result is received without the system (for free);
3. The system exists when and where it needed;
4. The system consumes minimum resources;
5. Any output of the system is used;
As one can see each of the five mentioned above principles beginning from the second one is a step back from the "absolute" ideal - "the result isn't needed".
One is able to assess how far suggested changes from the ideal are.
The ideal pipeline is the pipeline that does not exist, but fully performs its function.
Ideality principles:
1. The result (from the pipeline) isn't needed
2. The result (from the pipeline) is received without the system (for free)
3. The system (pipe line) exists when and where it needed
4. The system (pipeline) consumes minimum resources
5. Any (even harmful) output of the system (pipeline) is used
As one can see each of the five mentioned above principles is the next step back from the ideal - "the result isn't needed"
Local versus global ideality
You already have B - you have bought it long ago. Now you use it to make C.
B is less suitable than A to make C, but in order to use A you have to buy it.
Thus, globally A is more ideal than B but locally (for you) B is more ideal, because B is your resource and A isn't.
Substitute, for example, B by oven that you already have and can use for thermal treatment of samples C .
Oven A has better characteristics. It needs less area, consumes less energy, needs less time to gain desired temperature, is able to communicate with the local net and has a lot of additional features.
But you have to buy it!
This mean that locally oven A is less ideal than oven B. The local ideality is based on the local resources.
As far as apps are "artificial systems" they should act according to so called "ideality principles":
1. The result isn't needed
2. The result is received without the system (for free)
3. The system exists when and where it needed
4. The system consumes minimum resources
5. Any output of the system is used
As one can see each of the five mentioned above principles beginning from the second one is a step back from the "absolute" ideal - "the result isn't needed".
These principles sometimes are very "brutal" – you are out of the market/smartphone (your company/app does not exists), but customer's needs are satisfied.
There are four demands of so called "Ideal Final Result"
1. Perform (or preserve) useful function(s)
2. Eliminate (prevent, correct etc.) undesired effect(s)
3. Do not cause harm
4. Do not complicate your system
They are fully applicable to development or/and improvement apps.
Mentally remove HR evaluations institutes or placement agencies.
What undesired effect (UDE) will appear without these institutions in field of HR?
Just don't say that everything will be fine - it won't otherwise these organizations would not appear.
They for sure perform some functions - what are these functions?
There are two possible alternatives:
a. Performing of these functions without HR evaluation/placement companies
b. Improvement of HR evaluation/placement companies - reducing or removing UDEs that are connected with their work
Innovation texts
Any startup is based on an initial idea. The idea is able to bring success if it meet criteria as follows:
1. The idea should be consumable - this means that it should resolve a customer's problem and/or satisfies a customer's need
2. The idea should be marketable - this means that market for the idea should be big enough and in case it is big, it (market) should not be occupied with a few strong players that simply won't allow you success. Evaluate, for example cardiovascular market at nowadays.
3. The idea should be protectable - this means not only "patent umbrellas", but also know how. Otherwise, "blue ocean" is going to turn into "red" one:)
4. The idea should be feasible - this means that it is possible to build a working in real conditions prototype.
5. The idea should be profitable - this means that it satisfies three contradictive demands: quality, time and cost.
But meeting the mentioned above criteria is necessary, but isn't enough. Unfortunately, some startups are able to fail even if they are based on the best idea.
Innovation Implementation
Answer please to the "simple" question:
"Why are not (or rarely) implemented even excellent solutions of innovation consultants although they really resolve hard problems?"
I would like to share with my opinion...
1. Innovative problems seldom are stated correctly and often need to be reformulated.
If a problem is reformulated by a customer (with consultant’s help) it becomes the customer’s problem.
If a problem is reformulated by a consultant it remains the consultant’s problem and is rarely accepted by the customer.
2. Innovative concepts often contradict to the previous customer’s experience and demand overcoming some psychological “gap”.
If a concept was found by a customer (with consultant’s help) it becomes the customer’s concept.
If it was found by a consultant it remains the consultant’s concept and is rarely accepted by the customer.
Thus if a consultant tries to resolve an innovative problem him(her)self instead of facilitating of customer work on the subject – she/he often finishes with a some type of lose-lose situation instead of the win-win one, because:
a. Customer does not agree that this is his/her problem
b. Customer does not agree that the suggested direction leads to solution
c. Customer does not agree that the suggested solution resolves the problem
d. Customer isn’t ready to overcome any potential ramifications (secondary problems)
e. Customer isn’t ready to overcome implementation obstacles
Yes, experienced innovation consultants are able to resolve innovation problems and generate innovative concepts,
BUT
In order to get better implementation results innovation consultants rather should pay attention to training customers and facilitating of the problem solving process.
Innovation Dilemma
In order to gain permanent success in the modern world, on the one hand, companies have to bring new products or services to the market.
Otherwise a company will be “swept out” of the market by more innovative competitors.
On the other hand, companies should generate profit.
Developing and testing of new ideas demands a lot of money and "eats profit"
According to some sources the ratio is 3000/1 - 3000 raw ideas - 1 commercial success.
The famous Hamlet's question "To be, or not to be?" in this case turns into "Innovate or not to innovate?"
It is so called Innovation Dilemma.
And this dilemma has two possible resolving directions:
1. Bringing the new products and services to the market for less money - reducing innovation process costs (breaking the ratio "3000/1")
2. Bringing the new products and services to the market without innovation process
Of course I prefer the first direction, because I earn money from facilitating and/or training teams and individuals to generate innovative concepts.
But there are other ways, for example, so called open innovation, acquisition etc.
You can find more about the 3000/1 ratio here:
The main question is: "Why does exist such a ratio?
In my opinion such a frightening ratio (3000/1) is the result of the fact that in majority of the cases the problem field differs from the solution field.
For example a problem is in the precise mechanics field and a possible solution is in the chemistry field.
"Problem field" consultants (specialists) and "solution field" consultants (specialists) are not the same
Moreover before you have found a solution concept you are not able to define the solution field - otherwise you would apply to the right consultant.
This is the first reason of the 3000/1 ratio.
The second one is that in majority of cases we use so called trial and error method that is good enough when we need to resolve a problem from our field.
But this method (trial and error) isn't acceptable when the solution is located far enough from our specialty’s field.
So called psychological inertia vector directs us away from the field of strong solutions that might bring commercial success.
What can be done?
In my opinion, the right way to reduce the 3000/1 ratio is to use modern systematic innovation methods like TRIZ, TOC etc. because they enable:
- Choice of the right problem (the key potential customers problem)
- Deep insight of the conflict (its time, place and essence)
- Choice of the most promising problem solving direction (direction to the strong solutions field)
- Resource support of the chosen direction (expenses minimization)
- Connection to the world best problem solving patterns (usage of the world problem solving wisdom)
- Reliable concept evaluation (compliance to solution criteria)
After that in case of such a need you might apply to the "solution field" consultant and he/she is supposed to be the right consultant.
When most of managers are really ready to innovate
In spite of opposite declaration most of managers (sincerely) think that actually they don't need to innovate.
In majority of cases they (managers) start to think about innovating when a certain chain of events has become reality.
What is this chain?
The chain consists of events connected each other by a number of ANDs as follows:
1. Manager has come across a serious problem with a product or service on its specific life stage;
AND
2. Manager is not able to solve the problem with common (traditional in her/his domain) methods;
AND
3. Amount of possible solutions from other domains is more than accepted;
AND
4. Concept testing takes a lot of time/money;
AND
5. Manager cannot afford to spend a lot of money/time;
By other words this chain (situation) is called “deep sh*t”.
Without any of ANDs of the chain above manager in most of cases is sure that there is no need in innovation.
In case of company such a chain might cause to lost of the business
In case of a person such a chain might cause to lost self-esteem
Thus manager that isn't yet in this situation has two alternatives:
1. Wait until such a situation occurs and then apply to innovation / problem solving methods if it will not be too late, of course
2. Take preventive measures (apply to innovation / problem solving methods or experts n advance) in order to be prepared. And who knows – maybe such measures will prevent the mentioned above situation...
Innovation, in my opinion, is an implemented change that brings mainly commercial (broadly speaking) result.
According to MUST (multilevel universal system thinking) the change might be implemented on different levels (I call them consuming levels):
1. A new result (a new satisfied customer’s need–“need” solution);
2. A new method of gaining the same result (“principle” solution);
3. A new technology the same method is based on (“scientific” solution);
4. New means the same technology is supported by (“technical” solution);
5. A new set of parameters of the same technical solution (“parametric” solution);
Innovation graph
The innovation graph helps us to evaluate innovations and innovators.
It looks like y=1/|x|, where "y" represents impact in development and "x" – impact in consuming.
There are innovations and brilliant Y-innovators and there are innovations and brilliant X-innovators.
For example, Tchaikovsky was the X-innovator and his input in development of symphonic music was close to zero. He even used as his slogan "No novation!" But Tchaikovsky’s input in consuming of symphonic music was endless.
Maybe the same description (X-innovator) is also right for Steve Jobs.
Thus x-type geniuses cannot be judged according to rules y-type geniuses and vice versa.
Innovation Quadrant
The innovation quadrant helps us to divide innovation activities depending on market and product. It consists of two axis:
Product/service:
1. Existing Product/Service;
2. New Product/Service;
Market:
1. Existing Market;
2. New Market;
Thus we have four innovation sub-quadrants:
1. Existing Market - Existing Product/Service
2. Existing Market - New Product/Service
3. New Market - Existing Product/Service
4. New Market - New Product/Service
Related to sub-quadrants innovation activities are connected with different tasks and, therefore, their tools (and resources) also differ.
For example, quadrant "Existing Product/Service - Existing Market" might include Value Engineering and/or Lean tools to cut costs. Quadrant "New Product/Service - New Market" might include various forecasting tools, like TRIZ regularities of technological system development.
The innovation quadrant also gives four possible (innovation based) strategies to increase revenues:
- Increase of the existent market share with the existent product/service (Existing Market - Existing Product/Service)
- Introduction of new products/services into the existent market (Existing Market - New Product/Service)
- Expansion to new markets with the existent product/service (New Market - Existing Product/Service)
- Introduction of new products services into new markets (New Market - New Product/Service)
Like innovation activities each of the mentioned above strategies is also connected with appropriate set of tools.
Adding “company” as the third axis (Existent Company – New Company) to the innovation quadrant might turn it into an innovation cube increasing the number of strategies to eight.
CEO joke...
A new CEO comes instead of a CEO that leaves a company.
After overlapping the former CEO says:
"I have prepared for you three packets - open them one by one when you meet serious troubles"
After a few months of unsuccessful management the new CEO open the first packet take out a sheet and reads: "Accuse me in failures!"
He starts to accuse the former CEO in failures and get the next "quiet" six months
But troubles are not over!
Then he opens the second packet take out a sheet and reads: "Innovate! Start serious changes or reconstruction of the company. Implement innovation as policy of the company, its new standard!"
The CEO gets a few more excellent innovation years.
But troubles are not over!
Then he opens the third packet take out a sheet and reads: "Prepare three packets"
P.S. As you know there is only part of joke in each joke... :)
Innovation versus problem solving
"Innovator" and "Problem Solver" are different behavior modes.
"Innovator" go TO (better).
"Problem Solver" go FROM (worse).
Of course, sometimes "Innovator" solves problems and "Problem Solver" innovates, but their initial intents are different.
The first wants something new because maybe it will be better.
The second wants something new because of problems with old.
Nevertheless, result of their activities might be the same.
Try to determine for yourself, who are you - "Innovator" or "Problem Solver".
If you are an Innovator - this means that you are mostly a "positive thinker" and you see the world through a "prism of opportunities"
If you are a Problem solver this means that you are a "negative thinker" and you see the world through a "prism of problems".
Actually the both approaches are "two side of the same coin"
Remark:
Design team might include both types of thinkers – don’t limit abilities of your team by using only one of two approaches.
The key word that characterize a good team that performs a task is agreement.
1. Agreement on the problem
2. Agreement about the direction to resolve the problem
3. Agreement that the solution resolves the problem
4. Agreement to overcome any potential negative ramifications
5. Agreement to overcome any obstacles to implementation
By the way, such teams are built during TOC (theory of constrains) sections and are called “Team against the problem”
Actually "team against the problem" is "team with common goal and vision"
I read somewhere that a brain is rather means of survival than innovation...
I don't remember in which of the last decade movies I heard such a phrase which a girl says to her (too annoying) boyfriend:
"I want to be a part of your life, but not instead of the life!"
Innovation (like this girl) sometimes says to "her too annoying boyfriends":
"I want to be a part of your company's life, but not instead of the life!"
Do they hear?
Nikolai Egorovich Zhukovsky - scientist, known as the father of Russian aviation wrote that any mechanical engineer writes differential equations (this was time, when mechanical engineers were able to do this :)), but a good mechanical engineer writes differential equations that can be integrated.
I think this quote is applicable to asking "right" questions by innovative leaders. Good innovative leaders ask questions that can be answered.
By the way, such right questions (even, systems of questions) were developed and classified long ago. They have become important parts of modern innovation methods.
In my opinion, innovative leaders should know and be able to implement these methods in order to succeed.
Are regularities of technical systems' development actually a generalized VOC (voice of customer)?
In my opinion, regularities (evolution trends) actually are a generalized (and hidden) VOC. There is a difference between generalized and specific VOC. Regularities (trends)reflect the generalized one. In my opinion, that isn't so obvious and that's why it is interesting. Let me clarify...
A customer wants to get more and pay less.
A customer wants a system to work where and when this is needed.
A customer wants a system to consume less energy and produce less harm.
A customer wants a system to be more controllable
etc.
All this fit to regularities of technical systems' development (system evolution trends).
Thus one could call this "generalized VOC" that is expressed by regularities.
Some regularities (I would call them "inner regularities") are not derived from VOC. Actually these "inner regularities" (VOP also a good name:)) are the way to provide the "outer" ones that are generalized VOC and might be related to the formula of Ideality.
Of course we can look at any system from different points of view:
As an object
As an subject
As a part of process (active and passive)
etc.
Two "simple" questions: What is the main innovation contradiction for consumers? and What is the leading industry in resolving this contradiction?
Let's, for example, take such a situation. A customer has bought a car, but at the next year a new car is already on the market. The customer wants the new one, but in majority of cases has to wait a couple of years. The situation gets even worse with computers, tablets and... Smart-phones that change too quickly...
What is the leading industry in resolving such a contradiction?
I mean updates of software products including smartphone apps. Of course, there definitely is a difference (non-material updates are easier), but we speak about principles.
For example, a car manufacture company that will provide even minor updates for its products will beat the world
Of course software is easier for updates. But I want once again to pay your attention on the principle itself
What is systematic innovation methodological "environment" and how does it differ from systematic innovation methods?
I will try to be more specific. Six Sigma is an environment for quality increase. Lean is an environment for reducing wastes. But, for example, TRIZ and TOC are not "environments", in my opinion. They are methods. So what is difference?
Don't you see that "environments" occupy the world? And methods (even sets of methods like TRIZ and TOC) don't. It looks like TRIZ and TOC are lack of something to become, for example, an innovation or problem solving environment. What is it?
Word "environment" does not reflect exactly what I mean. Maybe word "ecosystem" suits better
In my opinion, an industrial (methodological) environment should fully cover a wide enough direction. For example, cost reduction, waste reduction, quality improvement, innovation, problem solving etc. TRIZ does not cover fully any of the mentioned above directions. TRIZ is a universal set of procedures and typical transformations of system and its environment / surrounding images that allows to find ideas for problems with contradictions. It is pretty narrow direction. Each of the mentioned above directions include also problems without contradiction and other activities and processes that don’t deal with problems.
Thus TRIZ can be only part of various industrial environments. And this means that it should be matched to them for wider distribution.
I see the only direction that TRIZ could fully (or nearly fully) cover. It is Creative Thinking Development. TRIZ is the leader in this field. So rather other methods should be matched and incorporated into TRIZ.
I agree that the innovation environment has some characteristics of a catalyst, but as the methodological industry environment it also includes methods, activities, processes and supporting means. I believe that TRIZ should be rather a part of such an environment than substitute it.
Let's define what the industrial (methodological) environment is. In my opinion, it is a set of means including methods that fully (or nearly fully) "covers" tasks of one of industrial activities, like cost reduction, waste reduction, quality improvement, innovation, problem solving etc. Such an industrial activity should be permanent in order to become the base for the industrial (methodological) environment.
Open innovation
Open innovation, in my opinion, means full or partial outsourcing an innovation process. Unfortunately in the recommended presentation that is attached to the blog article is provided a confusing mixture of stages, methods and means related to the innovation process. I have to point that such a definition makes clear that so called "Open Innovation" has appeared prior than its name, because some of innovation process stages were outsourced long ago.
Function Oriented Search
In my opinion function oriented search would work better rather after then before finding a solution idea. Let me explain…
In majority of the cases the problem field differs from the solution field even if it is formulated on the function level. That's why problem and solution field's specialists are not the same people even in case of a leading industry where a function's performance is critical. Therefore before you have found a solution concept, I believe, you have doubtful abilities to define correctly a solution field and find "leaders".
Once you have found a solution idea you really can perform a search. But I would strongly recommend (in addition a function) to base such a search also on scientific effects and phenomena the solution idea might be based on. More than 15 years ago, when TRIZ (in English) was called TIPS yet I had submitted to one of TIPS sites post as follows:
"…If You work for a usual company which haven’t R&D department you nearly can’t use TRIZ in your work.
Why?
Because it isn't enough to find an idea under these conditions. You can’t make a serious R&D work that is needed, because it takes a lot of time and money. The only way is to find a company, which already has a ready technology that is based on your idea and buy it.
You can say: “It’s impossible if I have found the new idea!”
OK.
Maybe it is a new idea for you, maybe it’s even a new approach in your field, but it isn't new for the all technology world - I can guarantee this 99%.
Thus your first step is to find an idea and second one is to find the company which already applies this idea and has the needed technology. To find such companies you can by using Internet search engines.
For example, you have found the idea to use ice instead of sand for cleaning - try to search for this technology and equipment providers using key words “ice blasting” or “ice blasting technology”.
The best way to search is to take as the base for searching physical effects and phenomena the needed technology is based on…."
Farther I wrote about how a TRIZ-soft should work with search engines…
It is interesting that this post is actual yet. Moreover, it has been becoming more actual with development of search engines in the last years
Any business includes the following interconnected elements: market, company and product/service.
The elements has levels of their development - 3-4 levels depending on the element.
Some of level matches are "forbidden". For example, a level three company hardly compatible with a level one product and a level one (or even less) market and without additional measures it is going to fail.
Maybe some reasons for unaccepting innovation ideas lay in a "latent" insight of stakeholders about such "forbidden" matches in suggestions of innovators.
Thus innovators should (in case of "forbidden" matches) suggest additional measures to stakeholders in order to overcome obstacles.
About the measures refer Quantum-Economic Analysis (QEA) This method enables to define a business strategy (including innovation) basing on matching between stages of development according to so called "S-curve" of the company itself, its product/service and its market. Some of the links are inappropriate.
As far as any business includes not only market, company and product/service, but also levels of their development (3-4 levels), before defining a disruptive strategy one has to:
1. Using each of business characteristics (market, company and product/service) as axis build a "business space"
2. Determine in this "space" where is his/her specific business "cubic"
3. Define the disruptive strategy(strategies) that is (are) connected with this specific "cubic"
Mainly this strategy is connected with a "jump" into another "cubic". Some of "jumps' are "forbidden". For example, a level three company hardly compatible with a level one product and with a level one (or even less) market and without additional measures is going to fail.
For more about the measures refer Quantum-Economic Analysis (QEA). This method enables to define a business strategy basing on matching between stages of development according to so called "S-curve" of the company itself, its product/service and its market.
A new idea without possible commercialization (broadly speaking) actually isn't innovation - in the best case it is (useful or useless) invention. In spite of disliking to change and change people except innovations, but are very suspicious to inventions
Innovation activity in a crisis differs...
Let's look at so called "innovation quadrant":
1-t axis Existing Product/Service - New Product/Service;
2-d axis Existing Market - New Market;
As one can see its sub-quadrants are connected with different tasks and, therefore, their tools and resources also differ. For example, sub-quadrant "Existing Product/Service - Existing Market" might includes Value Engineering and/or Lean tools to cut costs.
In my opinion, in a crisis it is better innovate in two sub-quadrants that are connected with existing product/service and leave the rest half of the innovation quadrant for "after crisis" time.
Disruption might relate to: a market, a product/service, a company (business model, for example). Let's call this 3-D Disruption. ::)
Clayton Christensen relates disruption to the first one (1-st D) - market. That's why such companies as Uber and Tesla are not disruptive according to his theory.
By the way, I agree that Tesla isn't disruptive in the automobile industry also according to 3-D Disruption. So what? In my opinion the main part of any innovation is commercialization. Without it a change (in the best case) remains invention.
Disruption is something more meaningful. According to MUST (multilevel universal system thinking) there are five change levels:
1. Result
2. Method (to get the result)
3. Technology (the method is based on)
4. Means (that support the technology)
5. Parameters (that wrap all the above levels)
Disruption is something that is connected with a change on the two (rarely three) first levels.
For example, in education it could be connected with change of education result and a method to get this result. Means (virtual & augmented realities) are not the real disruption for education.
The same could be said about the rest "disruptions".
Nevertheless, no one underestimates their possible "disruptive" impact in consuming.
Any idea in any field of human life suggests a change. This suggested change might occur on one of the following levels:
1. Result to be gained (a satisfied need)
2. Method to gain the result
3. Technology the method is based on
4. Means that support the technology
5. Parameters that wraps al the mentioned above levels.
A change on one of the levels demands "rebuilding all" the levels below the changed one.
"By definition" the most "creative" changes relates to the first levels - new results (new satisfied needs). But rebuilding the rest four levels take a lot of efforts and time. It nearly always is connected with failures. The second and even the third levels are also "creative" enough, because their impact mainly in development.
It isn't the case when we deal with the last two levels. They are relatively easy to sell because their impact mainly in consuming.
Built a quadrant to evaluate startup founders:
1. Ability (low; high)
2. Motivation (low; high)
Add integrity as the necessary characteristic - absence of integrity remove a founder from the quadrant.
1. Low ability; low motivation - are not worthy
2. Low ability, high motivation - training or additional person is needed to succeed
3. High ability; low motivation - stimulus (good if only the material one) is needed
4. High ability; high motivation - good but occurs rarely
The vast majority of startups with good products fail at prior-to-revenue-stage because of money deficiency. That’s why they (startups) should prioritize their activities. Criteria are the core of any prioritizing. Here are three main criteria (all of them connected to money, by the way) according to their importance:
1. Activity “generates” (increases possibility of) investment;
2. Activity prevents creating or reduces amount of “linked” money – spare equipment, raw materials and unfinished products;
3. Activity reduces (operational) expenses including unneeded workforce;
Actually they are TOC criteria modified for startups at money raising stage.
Incremental innovation dominate, because innovation, in my opinion, is an implemented change that brings mainly commercial (broadly speaking) result. According to MUST (multilevel universal system thinking) the change might be implemented on different levels (I call them consuming levels):
1. A new result (a new satisfied customer’s need–“need” solution);
2. A new method of gaining the same result (“principle” solution);
3. A new technology the same method is based on (“scientific” solution);
4. New means the same technology is supported by (“technical” solution);
5. A new set of parameters of the same technical solution (“parametric” solution);
A change on one of the levels demands rebuilding all the levels below the changed one. "By definition" the most "creative" changes relate to the first level - new results (new satisfied needs). Rebuilding the rest four levels in such a case takes a lot of time, efforts and money. Such a work is nearly always connected with failures. The second and the third levels are also "creative" enough, because of their impact mainly in development.
It isn't the case when changes occur at the last two levels - incremental innovations. They are relatively easy to sell because of their impact mainly in consuming.
Leadership texts (some are not my mine)
My partner Rony Mann when we start a course or workshop gives an example from his practice.
Production process of one very successful company has become unsustainable.
All the time engineering and manufacturing departments dealt with a permanent firefighting.
Every day was started from the morning meeting where representatives of these departments reported to management of the company about their success in firefighting.
Actually there were two permanent things - fire and success in firefighting:)
But there was time when everything worked sustainably...
After a long frustration period of this DS (deep shit) situation management of the company applied to TOC specialist (Rony) in order to find an idea how to resolve this situation.
I am not going to describe here whole TOC TP process in order to find the root problem.
I want only to point that the root cause of unsustainability was ... the morning meeting.
when the company management gets reports about yesterday's problems that were resolved (and who has resolved them) and about new problems that have appeared.
As result workers of engineering and manufacture departments resolved problems after reporting to get credit for their firefighting.
After removing this morning meeting (and, of course, some additional measures) during a short period the company has returned to sustainable work
This reminds me one old story from my former home-country...
It was time when robotizing of production processes was suggested as a panacea for improvement.
Looks familiar, does not it?
One of specialists in robotizing was invited by one of the leading production plants in order to advise how to robotize the manufacturing process.
He carefully had studied the manufacture and summarized:
"It is impossible to robotize chaos!"
Is it possible to "Leanize" a government?
"We will not jump over the chasm - we will move carefully, step by step"
V.Chernomyrdin
Human capital is rather rented (like cars, buildings or land) than owned by companies.
That's why it cannot be considered as asset.
A bad company works like a water filter. Good managers (the clean water) pass through it and "contaminants" are caught
A dragon goes through a forest and meets a bear.
-What is your name?
-Bear.
-OK. I wrote down your name - come tomorrow morning and I will eat you for breakfast. Do you have questions?
-No...
The dragon continue walking through the forest and meets wolf.
-What is your name?
-Wolf.
-OK. I wrote down your name - come tomorrow afternoon and I will eat you for lunch. Do you have questions?
-No...
The dragon continue walking through the forest and meets a fox.
-What is your name?
-Fox.
-OK. I wrote down your name - come tomorrow evening and I will eat you for dinner. Do you have questions?
-Yes. What if won't I come?
-OK. Then I remove you from the list
Alexander Pushkin in his poem "The Poet" has written better:
"As long as Apollo does not call the poet
For a sacred sacrifice
He is cowardly immersed
In the concerns of the vain world
His sacred lyre is silent
His soul is consumed by a cold dream
And of the World's worthless offspring
He may be the most worthless of all."
“Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art”. Konstantin Stanislavsky :)
Leadership
1. Demand but defend;
2. Provide freedom but together with responsibility;
3. Support but don't take credit;
Smart leaders that failed were suitable for their companies that were on late third-fourth stage of their development. These companies produced products or provided service that were on late third-fourth stage of their development for markets that were an late third-fourth stage of their development.
These leaders simply have no choice to accept and introduce ideas that rather are suitable for companies on first-second stage of their development that are able to develop products or provide service that is on first-second stage of their development for markets that are on first-second stage of their development. They (leaders) did not belong to these earlier stages.
Such a leadership mismatch could be overcome by special measures. Unfortunately, leaders were not (and are not) familiar with these measures. That's why business failures cannot be avoided because necessity of match between leadership and development stage of company, product/service and market won't allow this.
Maybe instead of endless speculations about true leadership we have to pay attention on "objects" of leadership. Those "objects" that true leaders transform from state A(problem) into state B(solution).
In my opinion studies of both leadership and followership should be rather connected to such "objects". Who knows - maybe using such an approach we will discover some additional leadership qualities...
1. Professional intelligence (includes the economical one)
2. Informational intelligence
3. Emotional intelligence
4. Social intelligence (includes the cultural one)
5. Cognitive intelligence (wraps all the mentioned above "intelligences")
Note: In my opinion, it's nearly impossible to possess them all, but one should strive.
Actually the advantage of former leaders was mainly in the fact that then were a lot of people that were agree to be led. Nowadays each one wants to be leader himself and those rare people that don't, are under pressure of various advisers that try to convince them in necessity to be a leader. As result we will have teams that looks like dragons with a few heads, which all want to eat, and one ass to evacuate a shit produced by such a leadershit
And what are reasons that vast majority of college-educated young professionals "aspire to a leadership role in whatever field they ultimately choose to work"? Of course, some answers lie in the field of ethology, but, in my opinion, significant part of answers also lies in external influence (actually it is brain-washing) that if they are "worth something" they should "aspire to a leadership role".
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it" Alan Kay
"To read too many books is harmful." Mao Zedong :)
“Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become habits. Watch your habits for they become your character. And watch your character for it becomes your destiny..." Margaret Thatcher
The idea of using a template for everything nearly always meets resistance, but nearly always… wins once it is accepted. It is especially right for using a template for creative problem solving.
"- Here is a violin - play it, please!
- I'm sorry, but I cannot play violin...
- So you admit that you cannot play violin, but I am more complex instrument. Why are you sure that you are able to play on me?!"
“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”
Margaret Thatcher
LinkedIn debates texts
In my opinion the majority of problems arise if a solution for your problem is out of your knowledge field. Moreover you even don't know what a field of knowledge is. In this case you have to find rather consultants than suppliers but who they are?
In my opinion, choosing of the methodology depends on company culture.
For some companies Lean is the best fit, for some companies - TOC (theory of constraints) and for some companies - Six Sigma.
Actually these methodologies are compatible.
See also comparison tables here:
How to Compare Six Sigma, Lean and the Theory of Constraints
http://www.leaninstituut.nl/publications/ASQ,sigma.pdf
Some rules relating to team from TOC (theory of constraints)...
Team members:
*Team members should represent each part of the system we deal with
*Team members should be decision makers
Team activity:
*Gain agreement on the problem
*Gain agreement about the direction to solve the problem
*Gain agreement that the solution solves the problem
*Agree to overcome any potential negative ramifications
*Agree to overcome any obstacles to implementation
“Team against the problem” = team with common goal and vision
Lean, Six Sigma, TOC, TRIZ
Actually all these methodologies (Lean, Six Sigma, TOC and TRIZ) are intended to bring the same result by different ways:
TOC - by removing system constraints
Lean - by reducing value flow waste
Sis Sigma - by reducing process variation
TRIZ by getting an ideal solution by resolving contradiction.
In the real world TRIZ should “get married” with one of the mentioned above methods (or with all of them)
Actually all more or less successful attempts to use TRIZ are connected with such "marriages" in spite of sometimes they are presented as parts of TRIZ.
My partner Rony Mann when we start a course or workshop gives an example from his practice.
Production process of one very successful company has become unsustainable.
All the time engineering and manufacturing departments dealt with a permanent firefighting.
Every day was started from the morning meeting where representatives of these departments reported to management of the company about their success in firefighting.
Actually there were two permanent things - fire and success in firefighting:)
But there was time when everything worked sustainably...
After a long frustration period of this DS (deep shit) situation management of the company applied to TOC specialist (Rony) in order to find an idea how to resolve this situation.
I am not going to describe here whole TOC TP process in order to find the root problem.
I want only to point that the root cause of unsustainability was ... the morning meeting.
when the company management gets reports about yesterday's problems that were resolved (and who has resolved them) and about new problems that have appeared.
As result workers of engineering and manufacture departments resolved problems after reporting to get credit for their firefighting.
After removing this morning meeting (and, of course, some additional measures) during a short period the company has returned to sustainable work
This reminds me one old story from my former home-country...
It was time when robotizing of production processes was suggested as a panacea for improvement.
Looks familiar, does not it?
One of specialists in robotizing was invited by one of the leading production plants in order to advise how to robotize the manufacturing process.
He carefully had studied the manufacture and summarized:
"It is impossible to robotize chaos!"
Is it possible to "Leanize" a government?
Success validation
When we need to validate equipment or process it is very helpful to build a table with such names of columns:
Activity;
Expected result;
Actual result;
Conformance (between "results");
The same might be done to evaluate (validate) success...
As conformance for success evaluation use ratio (actual result) / (expected result)
The main problem is not inventing a game, but to attract people to play this game.
This was the first "main" question.
The second "main" question is: "What does prevent people to play a certain game?"
I rather have ideas how to modify a few popular games.
One of them is chess, by the way.
The ideas are twenty years old and actually were not fully applicable in those days.
Nowadays they could be nice applications for Smartphone
Why do some people don't like to play chess, but like to play cards, for example, even though they are not so proficient in both games?
The right answer to such a question could give you game improving ideas...
How do we call a person that when we ask him/her "What is the time?" first of all starts to explain us how watches work?
Crowd sourcing
I participated (for fun) in a few attempts of crowd sourcing idea generation.
This took place in form of forum discussions (in Russian) here:
http://www.metodolog.ru/forum
Maybe I am not aware, but I have never met such discussions (some are more than 500 messages) in English.
Here are some of the discussions (Google translator could help)
http://www.metodolog.ru/node/846
http://www.metodolog.ru/node/1072
http://www.metodolog.ru/node/1145
http://www.metodolog.ru/node/436
http://www.metodolog.ru/node/898
Evaluation of ideas depends on those people that lead specific discussions and they in vast majority of cases don't care to finalize (and publish) the crowd idea generation work.
Sometimes somebody during discussion summarizes ideas, but it is done spontaneously
Sometimes (but rarely) on base discussions somebody writes an article that then is discussed again.
So it isn't a strict procedure.
The reason is, in my opinion, that participants relate to this as to a fun.
Actually the possibility to socialize isn't main in Waze whose product is really one of excellent examples of crowdsourcing
Why do people share? Look at two higher levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
In my opinion, the answer to your question is hidden there.
http://www.zollo.co.il/ I am sorry - it is in Hebrew. This company use similar principles of the "wise crowd" (diversity, independence, decentralization) aggregation (interest and choice freedom) but either field and goals are different. I would also add that in my opinion real and declared products of such companies are different. Unfortunately, the vast majority of apps developers don't understand this fact
I would say that best crowdsourcing apps rather attract marketers and market researchers than advertisers. I see such a line: making money from product selling -> making money from accompany product selling -> making money from advertising selling -> making money from marketing information selling -> making money from social behavior information selling.
Traditional brainstorming often falls short of expectations, yielding a large number of mostly low-quality ideas. (A typical brainstorming session produces 10-50 wild ideas and 1-2 valuable ones.) With classical brainstorming participants actively generate ideas for the first 20% of the session. The rest of the session is spent "squeezing" ideas out of the participants. Classical brainstorming leverages only the past experiences of the people on the brainstorming team.
Facilitation of brainstorming sessions
TRIZ tools should be adjusted for such a work for quick and easy learning and use by inexperienced group members. Actually TRIZ in such a case "gets married" with methods that more fit to perform such a task.
1. Professional intelligence (includes the economical one)
2. Informational intelligence
3. Emotional intelligence
4. Social intelligence (includes the cultural one)
5. Cognitive intelligence (wraps all the mentioned above "intelligences")
Note: In my opinion, it's nearly impossible to possess them all, but one should strive.
Yes, without proven innovation and problem solving methods it really looks like the "axe soup" – in the tale of my childhood soldier cooked soup from the axe that he loaned from a stingy but very curious housewife especially for the soup cooking. Without innovation methods you can "cook such a soup" one or twice and that is it – the first and most easy layers of innovative ideas are utilized. Then in order to turn this process into sustained one needs a good method otherwise it fades.
I would like to pay your attention to Quantum-Economic Analysis (QEA). This method enables to define a business strategy basing on matching between stages of development according to the S-curve of the company itself, its product/service and market. Some of the “matches” are inappropriate. That's why I am not sure that acting like a startup is "healthy", for example, for "mature" companies with "mature" products/services at "mature" markets.
I would like to pay attention on Quantum-Economic Analysis (QEA).
This method enables to define strategy of a company depending on match between development stages of the company itself, its product/service and market.
The method is based on S-curve analysis of product, company and market.
Here are links by Google:
Here is a link in Russian - look at the pictures. They are actually slides in English.
http://lib.ru/ECONOMY/INWESTICII/for_winners.txt
Use Google toolbar translator. It will help.
As far as any business includes not only market, company and product/service, but also levels of their development (3-4 levels) before defining a strategy one has to:
1. Using each of business characteristics (market, company and product/service) as axis build a "business space"
2. Determine in this "space" where is his/her specific business "cubic"
3. Define the strategy(strategies) that is connected with this specific "cubic"
Mainly this strategy is connected with a "jump" into another "cubic". Some of "jumps' are "forbidden" without additional measures.
For more about the measures refer Quantum-Economic Analysis (QEA) This method enables to define a business strategy basing on matching between stages of development according to so called "S-curve" of the company itself, its product/service and its market. Some of the links are inappropriate.
Somebody presents you something and try to "nail" your brain in the first 60 seconds. Don't forget also that this 'somebody" basing on advices like "the last phrase is remembered best of all" tries to "nail" your brain at the end of presentation.
This means for me that I have to miss the first and the last 60 seconds of a presentation to prevent such a "nailing" of my brain and behave like a drunkard from this anecdote.
The drunkard after pouring on ten drinks poured out the first and the last, because the first "won't go well" and the last "would be too much".
In my opinion, the best invention of Edison was... research & development institute/laboratory/center/department - an organization that allowed sustainable resolving complex scientific and engineering problems by dividing them into direction, sub-direction then distributed between branches, teams and people. We continue to use this great invention
Actually there are more traits that might be addressed to: goals, actions to get the goals, people that perform the actions, time to perform and money to support performing. Thus we have five groups of traits:
1. Goal traits;
2. Action traits;
3. People traits;
4. Time traits;
5. Money traits;
By the way, some traits might relate to different groups simultaneously.
I would divide the project management lessons (one learns) into five groups:
1. Customers
2. Product/service
3. Team
4. You (organizing your work)
5. Stakeholders
Some conflicts are based on "innocent" reasons.
Each of us have à set of meta-programs. We look at the world around us through prism of this set.
Some of us move to positive and some of us move from negative - one meta-program type.
Some of us see à general and then go down to details and some of us see details and then go up to à general - another meta-program type
Some of us have inner motivation and some of us have outer motivation - one more meta-program type.
And so on...
We also perceive the world through various so called (built-in) "filters": sense (goals), things/actions, processes, people, space and time. But number of used filters is limited by two-three.
I mean that sometimes conflicts occur because of mismatch of individual sets of meta-programs and/or filters.
By the way, people that are able to "map" in such a manner conflicting sides (including themselves) might avoid "innocent" conflicts and get a serious advantage in "non-innocent" ones.
DATA (even it is the big one) remain only... DATA. In order to be effectively used in decision making it should be transformed into facts, "hints", "allegories" and "codes". The previously mentioned things are actually the levels of information. The higher levels are fit better for decision making than... DATA. This means that the main thing isn't DATA, but transformation algorithms that rise it (DATA) to higher information levels.
We live in "transition" period that is characterized by unstable technology phase. That's why we have a lot of influencing on society mismatches. Millenials are "lucky" to represent these (increased) mismatches.
Actually there was such a period of unstable technology phase at the beginning of the previous age. When technology has gained its stable phase mismatches have returned to their "normal" level.
Therefore, in my opinion, in ten or fifteen years the same is going to occur with us.
"SMS Generation" is for sure going to turn into "Snapchat Generation" - less writing and reading. Actually there is a strong "scientific" basis under such a transfer...
I would not prefer one type of thinking to another. All three types (positive, negative and contradictory) have their pros and cons. Which type of thinking is more preferable - depends on a situation. That's why, in my opinion, people with one (dominating) type of thinking should develop the rest two types. Negative thinkers should develop abilities of positive and contradictory thinking and positive thinkers should develop abilities of negative and contradictory thinking. Contradictory thinkers actually have abilities of positive and negative thinking, but they should learn to separate them.
There are more idiots men than women. But there are also more geniuses men than women. Simply normal distribution graphs of intelligence for men and women has different sigma.
There are two possible directions to replace humans with robots:
1. Replace human being by a robot;
2. Replace human principle of action;
The first direction is wrong! In the nearest (and even not nearest!) future robots are not going to have advantage of humans in repeating their (humans) actions.
The second direction is right because it takes into account essential differences between human beings and robots. For example, attempts to replace a man with hook and brush that removes chips from complicated places of machinery centers by a sophisticated robot failed. Imagine to yourself that such a smart and expensive machine might stop its working or even be damaged because of a small chip that got stuck in an appropriate place and, therefore, needs somebody (with no qualification!) to clean it from chips. And now think that machinery center (fully automatic machine)stands on the floor... because human being worked standing on the floor. If they (machinery centers would "stand" on the ceiling upside-down - there would not be any need to remove chips. They (chips) would fall dawn themselves! OK, it isn't suggested to put machinery centers on the ceiling, but... turning them (their tables) upside-dawn. By the way, such machinery centers exist for more than thirty (maybe even more) years!
Imagine to yourself that in order to call somebody you should be customer of his/her phone/cellular company, otherwise you won't able making a call.
Absurd, isn't it?
So why does the situation differ with communication between customers of different social networks, for example? Looks like there is a room for ideas that could improve the situation.
For organizations I would pick out two operating modes:
1. Organization as "alive organism"
2. Organization as a source of need satisfactory for its employees.
Stuff of Maslow's Hierarchy levels for each of these two modes will be different.
Imagine that any organization is an organism with its needs.
In this case:
1. What are physiological needs of the organization?
2. What are its safety needs?
3. What are belonging needs of the organization?
4. What are its "self-esteem" needs?
5. What are self-actualization needs of the organization?
By the way, vision, mission, values etc. might be retrieved from the real layers' stuff.
If organization is considered as a source of need satisfactory for its employees one might apply an approach that is similar to described in your article.
As far as business networks during their development have turned into business environments and, then, into business ecosystems - I believe that social networks are going to turn into social environments and, then, into social ecosystems.
Facebook is among the firsts and goes to the right direction. Those that like Twitter tried not to go into this direction have come across with a lot of problems.
I think that the new world of work should adopt so called "Flipped Learning Model" turning it into “Flipped Working Model”.
TRIZ related texts
Do engineers really need TRIZ
Actually I myself don't think that TRIZ is "must have". And I think also that engineers are not so wrong when they don't want to spend a lot of time learning TRIZ.
They (majority of engineers) want to forget it (TRIZ) like nightmare after resolving a hard problem. "To forget TRIZ like nightmare" does not mean that they (engineers) dislike it.
They like... But they will not use it anymore in vast majority of cases for various reasons - from the simple laziness up to absence of a need. Engineers (usual engineers that don't intend to become TRIZ professionals - facilitators consultants, trainers etc.) need something "to be with and feel without" TRIZ.
Also the way how TRIZ treats changing of thinking paradigm isn't "user-friendly"
Thus I am not surprised and agree... with engineers.
Internet+TRIZ
Nearly twenty years ago, when TRIZ (in English) was called TIPS yet I had submitted to one of TIPS sites post as follows:
"If You work for a usual company which haven’t R&D department you nearly can’t use TRIZ in your work.
Why?
Because it isn't enough to find an idea under these conditions.
You can’t make R&D work, because it takes a lot of time and money.
The only way is to find a company, which already has the ready for use technology that is based on your idea and buy it.
You can say: “It’s impossible if I have found the new idea!”
OK.
Maybe it is a new idea for you, maybe it’s even a new approach in your field, but it isn't new for the all technology world - I can guarantee this 99%.
Thus your first step is to find an idea and second one is to find a company which already applies this idea and has the needed technology.
To find such companies you can by using Internet search engines.
For example, you have found the idea to use ice instead of sand for cleaning - try to search for this technology and equipment providers using key words “ice blasting” or “ice blasting technology”.
The best way to search is to take as the base for searching physical effects and phenomena the needed technology is based on.
And what is about TRIZ-soft?
TRIZ-soft has to enable such searches..."
Farther I wrote about how a TRIZ-soft should work with search engines...
It is interesting that this post is actual yet.
Moreover, it has been becoming more actual with development of search engines in the last years.
In my opinion, we actually don't need TRIZ software to perform a search anymore - Google allows us to do nearly the same for free:)
I see some parallels with resources in the mentioned above “papers” (for example “obscure feature”), but resource approach is much stronger.
Resource is one of the TRIZ basics.
Resource is everything you can use in system or its environment in order to resolve a problem.
Process of changing is... also resource.
Resources might be obvious or latent, ready or derived.
There are a lot of works related to typology of resources.
Here is one of papers about resources in TRIZ:
Some of the old works:
Zlotin, B.L., Vishnepolskaya, S.V. Use of Resources in Search for New Engineering Solutions. – Kishinev, 1985.
Petrov, V.Ì. Principles of the Theory of Resource Utilization. – L.: 1985.
Royzen, Z. Specific Features of Resources Utilization for Problem Solving and Improving Obtained Solutions. – Kishinev, 1986.
Petrov, V.Ì. A Technology of Resource Utilization. – Theory and practice of teaching engineering creativity. Abstracts of scientific papers. Chelyabinsk: UDNTP, 1988.– p. 55-56.
The first TRIZ article about such an approach ("system-centered") was published in the journal "Psychology issues" in 1956 by G. Altshuller and R. Shapiro.
http://www.altshuller.ru/triz/triz0.asp
As far as I know Altshuller strongly neglected psychology in spite publication of the first article about TRIZ in the “psychology journal”.
I think that he did not respect psychologists work in field of creativity and problem solving (then this was right attitude, in my opinion)
In his book "Creativity as an Exact Science" Altshuller refers to Duncker's experiment and describes its drawbacks.
Even criticizing so called psychological methods he pointed that they (methods) were not developed by psychologists.
I think that psychologists will be neglected and ignored by majority of leading TRIZ specialists until they (psychologists) will not prove that they are able to develop real problem solving methods.
And this should be done not by presenting statistics "control group" versus "experimental group" in a thesis or articles in a psychology journal, but by real problem solving results.
Until now such a thing has not occurred.
More or less successful feature transfer from psychology into TRIZ was done by non-psychologists.
But I have to admit that modern TRIZ community is much more loyal to psychology and psychologists than it was even fifteen years ago:)
"How can we make Joe Public more aware of TRIZ?"
The answer is very difficult and simple simultaneously:
"Make a lot of money (billions) and/or get an other incredible success using TRIZ and Joe Public will run after you"
I don't think that TRIZ success in such a case is measured by one more TRIZ book (if it isn't bestseller), one more TRIZ course in the leading universities (S.Ikovenko, for example gives such courses), individual success of somebody as a TRIZ consultant (a lot of examples) or even success of a certain consulting company (GEN3 is very successful) if you want to "make Joe Public more aware of TRIZ"
Even the fact that TRIZ was "adopted" by leading companies won't help - good for TRIZ "resume", but this isn't full truth, in spite of Samsung example.
So let's put aside making billions with help of TRIZ:) and define what else could be considered as TRIZ (incredible) success from view point of Joe Public.
Or... simply let's continue to work as we did before and in case that TRIZ is worthy something (as we believe) it will be accepted by public like were accepted other disciplines.
Don't relate to the classic examples from Altshuller's books as to real examples. A lot of them are based on patents that never were implemented. Moreover some of TRIZ inventive principles were derived (according Altshuller's own note in his book "Innovation Algorithm") fromm rejected patent applications.
Nevertheless these examples perform their function to illustrate usage of TRIZ tools with excellence. The solution idea for icebreaker, for example, was implemented many times to resolve real problems.
One my friend said me very interesting thing. He said:
Altshuller's TRIZ isn't intended for smart people - it is intended for the "less smart" or VERY smart people.
I asked: Why?
He answered: Because the "less smart" people accept it whole without criticism and the very smart ones see behind it brilliant ideas and don't pay attention on some of its "problematic" examples and non-accurate statements Thus our main goal is to change TRIZ in order it will be accepted by smart people. And one of the task is to use real examples.
Rome Formation and ... Destroying of SuField. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybHl9jYue_g - Start to look from 2:30
S1 is the Rome formation
S2 is their enemy
There are useful (formation action that kills enemy) and harmful (soldiers get tired and are killed because of enemy action) effects and S1 and S2 must be in contact.
Standard 1.2.4. Useful and harmful effects exist in a system in which the elements S 1 and S 2 must be in contact. Counteract the harmful effect of F 1 by having F 2 neutralize the harmful effect or gain an additional useful effect.
The harmful effect F1 (soldiers get tired and are killed because of enemy action) is neutralized by F2 (rotation of soldiers that in contact with enemy)
Actually we see here the same solution that is implemented in rotating cutter. A "usual" cutter sometimes is overheated during machining by turning machine. Rotation prevents it from overheating. In TRIZ rotation might be considered as a mechanical field.
The same solution idea is implemented in plasma cutting to prevent damage of electrode that should be in contact with arc. The electrode is made in form of a cup and the arc perform circular movement changing contact point.
Of course, we can see here also dynamism, matching-mismatching (rhythm, terrain etc.) and increase of controllability.
TRIZ Parallels with Old Jewish Tales
"Our Rabbis have taught that four entered into the Pardes: Ben Azai, Ben Zoma, “Acher” (Elisha Ben Avuyah) and Akiba.
Ben Azai gazed and died.
Ben Zoma gazed, and went insane.
Acher became an apostate.
Rabbi Akiba entered, and exited in peace."
What does PaRDeS means you can find here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardes_(Jewish_exegesis)
Any field of knowledge including TRIZ has its own "PaRDeS". Thus only one of those four that that start to learn TRIZ seriously (on professional level) will enter and exit in peace from "PaRDeS of TRIZ"
One of four will become an "apostate" (will discredit TRIZ);
One will "die" (never will use TRIZ);
One will get "insane" (will suggest TRIZ as panacea)
And only one of four will use it wisely;
"There's an old story we all learned as children about a stranger who came to rabbi Hillel with an odd request: "Teach me the Torah while I stand on one foot." So Hillel taught him: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary. Go and learn it."
In our case such an odd request of a stranger would sound like: "Teach me the TRIZ while I stand on one foot."
I don't pretend to be as wise as rabbi Hillel, nevertheless I would answer: "TRIZ is the improving change on-demand, all the rest (what to change, what for, when, where, how etc.) is commentary. Go and learn it"
Actually Su-field analysis (as application of the structural analysis to technology) deals with rules of creating, development and destroying structures.
The simplest structure is two objects and interaction between them.
In Su-field analysis substances are used as objects and fields as interactions. That's why I would rather call two substances and field a minimal structure.
As far as technical systems are structures - complete technical systems are complete structures that are described somehow also with four (or nine according to human force out regularity) blocks.
Thus in case of completeness we deal with the complete structure and in case of Su-field with the minimal structure.
Unfortunately, TRIZ nowadays looks like such an "epicycle theory". That's why all these ideas about different TRIZ modifications per various industries appear.
I do not mean universality<->specialty. I meant that the main (and right for its time) idea TRIZ based on nowadays has become obsolete. And analogy with the epicycle theory isn't casual at all. Either geocentric or heliocentric systems existed in antic Greece. Then the geocentric one won because it was more suitable for use. But with time to gain necessary accuracy there was a need to add more and more "sub-epicycles". The system becomes too complicated for use and is substituted by the heliocentric system.
Looks like modern TRIZ with its system-centric "objective" approach nowadays is at the same stage. I think... the system-centered approach should be substituted by the change-centered one. It is more precise and more universal, in my opinion.
At the very beginning of TRIZ development levels of change were in focus. They are called "invention levels". This is more close to the change-centered approach
Some Russian TRIZ specialists worked hard to "hammer" like a "nail" this thought (absolutely wrong in my opinion) "to understand TRIZ you must properly understand ARIZ-85C" in heads of audience that speaks other languages.:)
Nevertheless I find useful study of the ARIZ's logic and comparison between different versions of ARIZ.
Instead of trying to understand bad translations of ARIZ to English I would use original texts of Altshuller translated with help of Google translator.
Altshuller's Russian is simple and clear.
That's why his texts are better translated to English by Google translator than by most of translators that don't forget to add their own interpretation:)
The same is also correct for other Altshuller's texts (not only for ARIZ).
TRIZ Elevator Pitch
TRIZ enables:
• Problem situation analysis and choice of the right problem (the key problem);
• Deep insight of this problem (in terms of time, place and essence etc.);
• Choice of the most promising problem solving direction (direction to the strong solutions' field);
• Applying of available resources to support of the chosen direction (expenses minimization);
• Using of problem solving patterns (short recommendations of how exactly to use resources in order to find the solution idea);
• Clear and reliable criteria to evaluate the solution ideas;
Problem solving line according to TRIZ (or TRIZ-like) approach looks as follows:
Choose "the right problem" by using the system approach ; Formulate it correctly by using dialectic (contradiction) approach ; Define the most promising direction of problem solving by using "ideality" approach ; Use resources in order to support the direction to an ideal solution" ; Use "patterns" (regularities, principles, standards, effects) that reflect the world problem solving wisdom in order to know how transform resources to find solution ideas ; Then again use ideality approach to evaluate ideas and system approach to define so called subsequent problems.
Actually EP of a consultant should include three main points: "illness"(possible customer problems), "medicine to heal them" (TRIZ) and "why me" (your competitive advantages)
In TRIZ we use the term "resources". For those that want to know more about what this term means and how resources could be used in order to find solution ideas in crucial situations – read this paper:
Some quotes
Why do ordinary thoughts that told by famous people become aphorisms?
"Dear friend, all theory is grey,
And green the golden tree of life"
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Faust
"All your followers are blind
Too much heaven on their minds
It was beautiful, but now it's sour"
Heaven on Their Minds from Jesus Christ Superstar
We all stand on Altshuller's shoulders but his ears shut horizon to some of us.
The first condition to express thoughts clearly is... to have thoughts.
There was a joke right after Chernobyl's disaster.
Two refugees from one of the close to disaster areas meet in train and ask each other:
- What has caused you to leave?
- Radiation - and you?
- Information...
During development of the first I-MUST version were re-written a little bit TRIZ standards. Then was undertaken attempt to transfer this feature (standards) into the field of software. Basing on criteria presented in this work as Substance was taken DATA and as Field - Process. As far as I am not specialist in software these standards were tested (successfully) only once during a project that was connected with resolving one (very serious) software problem.
The fragment of these software standards is presented below.
DATA/Process pattern building/destroying/development rules
1.Incomplete DATA process systems turned into complete ones by adding elements that were absent. Full DATA/Process consists of two DATAs and process of interaction between them.
2.If between two DATAs exists “harmful” interaction the problem is resolved by putting between them third DATA that is change one of DATAs or their mix. In case it isn’t possible an additional process is used in order to destroy the harmful interaction
3.Development of DATA/Process is going in direction of dividing one of DATAs into two DATAs and adding a process of interaction between them. In case there is limitation for such a procedure an additional process is inserted into DATA/process system in addition to the process that already exists in the system.
4.Elements of DATA/Process system develop by substitution existing DATA and processes by more “fine” ones. These processes use more sophisticated levels of DATA
5.In order to expose name of effect of DATA processing combine names of input and output processes
Conceptual DATA/Process solutions (fragment)
1 Structure building (change)
a.For required action realization use one of the types of DATA processing.
b.Use the DATA for transforming process into the required action.
2. Structure building (measurements and/or indication)
a. it some process through the system, which might be detected easily, and then make a decision about modification in our system by the output change of this process.
b.Use easily detected “additions” of DATA – as process-transformers or as the source of some easy detected processes.
3. Elimination of harmful interaction
Destruction of harmful interaction between DATAs
a.Incorporate the third DATA between the first and the second DATAs. As a rule, this third DATA may be either the variation of the first (or the second) DATA or their mixture.
b.Incorporate the process, which would neutralize this harmful interaction.
Destruction of harmful interaction between DATA and process
a.Incorporate some process, which would neutralize the harmful action of the first process on the DATA.
b.Incorporate DATA, which would neutralize the harmful action.
4. Development of structures
Structure change
a.From the homogeneous or disordered processes, used for function realization, turn into the inhomogeneous and ordered (in “space” and in time) processes.
b.From the homogeneous or disordered DATA, used for function realization, turn into the inhomogeneous and ordered (in “space” and in time) ones.
Action rhythms coordination
a.Coordinate (or vice versa) the action of the DATA - carrier of function with the rhythm of the DATA-object of function.
a.Fill the pause during the one kind of process by another process.
Increase dynamics
a.From the rigid structure of the DATA-function carrier turn into soft, dynamic structure
a.Turn from the constant process into the changing process, then to the impulse process.
Increase of the manipulation ability
a.Parallel to the first process, necessary for the function realization, introduce into the system the second process, which can be managed easily.
b.It is useful to incorporate the process and the process transformer DATA, which can enable the control functions under the DATA (a carrier of the necessary function).
DATA incorporation restriction overcoming
1. Temporal incorporation of the DATA.
2. Incorporation of the DATA in the precise “place” only.
3. Usage of the DATAs that already exist in the system or environment as the incorporated ones.
4. Incorporation of the transformed DATAs of system or environment itself (i.e., usage of the transformed system’s/environment’s DATAs as the incorporated ones).
5. Usage absence of DATA as an incorporated DATA.
6. Usage of the DATA mixture. In this case, different types of mixtures might be used: mixture of various system DATAs; mixture of system and environment DATAs and so on
7. Usage of a process instead of incorporating of the DATA.
Process incorporation restriction overcoming
1. Temporal incorporation of the process.
2. Incorporation of the process in the precise “place” only.
3. Usage of the processes that already exist in the system or environment as the incorporated ones.
4. Incorporation of the transformed processes of system or environment itself (i.e., usage of the transformed system’s/environment’s processes as the incorporated ones).
5. Usage of a process pause as the incorporated process.
6. Usage of the combinations of processes. In this case some different combinations might be used: mixture of various system and environment processes etc.
"One day I was setting in the local library, I started to read a medical encyclopedia that was lying on the table in front of me....
... I read through the whole book, and by the end I came to the conclusion that I had every illness...
...I went straight to my doctor, who was a good friend of mine. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked. “I have every illness in the medical encyclopedia.” I told him how I read the medical encyclopedia."
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
Talent creates - genius steals from God
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”
Benjamin Disraeli
Politician has courage to take hard decisions.
I mean hard for society - not for him/her…
Intuition reflects an unconscious feeling of existing regularities.
"We will not jump over the chasm - we will move carefully, step by step"
V.Chernomyrdin
How do we call a person that when we ask him/her "What is the time?" first of all starts to explain us how watches work?
Who is a real fool?
A monkey sits near the river and washes orange peel.
A crocodile swims near and asks:
- What do you do?
- Give me ten bucks and I will tell you.
The crocodile gives the monkey ten bucks and gets the answer:
- I wash orange peel.
- You are a fool!
Cries the crocodile and the monkey answers:
- Maybe I am a fool but I make every day hundred bucks answering clever crocodiles like you...
A bad company works like a water filter. Good managers (the clean water) pass through it and "contaminants" are caught
A dragon goes through a forest and meets a bear.
-What is your name?
-Bear.
-OK. I wrote down your name - come tomorrow morning and I will eat you for breakfast. Do you have questions?
-No...
The dragon continue walking through the forest and meets wolf.
-What is your name?
-Wolf.
-OK. I wrote down your name - come tomorrow afternoon and I will eat you for lunch. Do you have questions?
-No...
The dragon continue walking through the forest and meets a fox.
-What is your name?
-Fox.
-OK. I wrote down your name - come tomorrow evening and I will eat you for dinner. Do you have questions?
-Yes. What if won't I come?
-OK. Then I remove you from the list
Alexander Pushkin in his poem "The Poet" has written better:
"As long as Apollo does not call the poet
For a sacred sacrifice
He is cowardly immersed
In the concerns of the vain world
His sacred lyre is silent
His soul is consumed by a cold dream
And of the World's worthless offspring
He may be the most worthless of all."
“Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art”. Konstantin Stanislavsky :)
"The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." Genesis 27
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it" Alan Kay
"To read too many books is harmful." Mao Zedong :)
“Life will find a way.” Jurassic Park. Crime will find a way…
“Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become habits. Watch your habits for they become your character. And watch your character for it becomes your destiny..." Margaret Thatcher
The idea of using a template for everything nearly always meets resistance, but nearly always… wins once it is accepted. It is especially right for using a template for creative problem solving.
"- Here is a violin - play it, please!
- I'm sorry, but I cannot play violin...
- So you admit that you cannot play violin, but I am more complex instrument. Why are you sure that you are able to play on me?!"
Become famous or rich. In this case even your ordinary stories will be supported, called "inspiring" and shared
“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”
Margaret Thatcher
"To find a pearl in a pile of garbage"
"Any woman who thinks the way to a man's heart is through his stomach is aiming ...too high"
Dad shows his son a picture with Santa Claus and asks: “What is the season?”
“Summer!” Answers the son
Dad: “Look at the picture… Who is there?”
Son: “Santa!”
Dad (points snow): “What is this?”
Son: “Snow!”
Dad: “So… what is the season?”
“Summer!” Answers the son again.
Dad: “How is that?!”
Son: “Such a shitty summer!”
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years”
Attributed to Mark Twain
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
Confucius
"Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think."
"Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week."
George Bernard Shaw
DATA/Process
During development of the first I-MUST version were re-written a little bit TRIZ standards. Then was undertaken attempt to transfer this feature (standards) into the field of software. Basing on criteria presented in this work as Substance was taken DATA and as Field - Process. As far as I am not specialist in software these standards were tested (successfully) only once during a project that was connected with resolving one (very serious) software problem.
The fragment of these software standards is presented below.
DATA/Process pattern building/destroying/development rules
1.Incomplete DATA process systems turned into complete ones by adding elements that were absent. Full DATA/Process consists of two DATAs and process of interaction between them.
2.If between two DATAs exists “harmful” interaction the problem is resolved by putting between them third DATA that is change one of DATAs or their mix. In case it isn’t possible an additional process is used in order to destroy the harmful interaction
3.Development of DATA/Process is going in direction of dividing one of DATAs into two DATAs and adding a process of interaction between them. In case there is limitation for such a procedure an additional process is inserted into DATA/process system in addition to the process that already exists in the system.
4.Elements of DATA/Process system develop by substitution existing DATA and processes by more “fine” ones. These processes use more sophisticated levels of DATA
5.In order to expose name of effect of DATA processing combine names of input and output processes
Conceptual DATA/Process solutions (fragment)
1 Structure building (change)
a.For required action realization use one of the types of DATA processing.
b.Use the DATA for transforming process into the required action.
2. Structure building (measurements and/or indication)
a. it some process through the system, which might be detected easily, and then make a decision about modification in our system by the output change of this process.
b.Use easily detected “additions” of DATA – as process-transformers or as the source of some easy detected processes.
3. Elimination of harmful interaction
Destruction of harmful interaction between DATAs
a.Incorporate the third DATA between the first and the second DATAs. As a rule, this third DATA may be either the variation of the first (or the second) DATA or their mixture.
b.Incorporate the process, which would neutralize this harmful interaction.
Destruction of harmful interaction between DATA and process
a.Incorporate some process, which would neutralize the harmful action of the first process on the DATA.
b.Incorporate DATA, which would neutralize the harmful action.
4. Development of structures
Structure change
a.From the homogeneous or disordered processes, used for function realization, turn into the inhomogeneous and ordered (in “space” and in time) processes.
b.From the homogeneous or disordered DATA, used for function realization, turn into the inhomogeneous and ordered (in “space” and in time) ones.
Action rhythms coordination
a.Coordinate (or vice versa) the action of the DATA - carrier of function with the rhythm of the DATA-object of function.
a.Fill the pause during the one kind of process by another process.
Increase dynamics
a.From the rigid structure of the DATA-function carrier turn into soft, dynamic structure
a.Turn from the constant process into the changing process, then to the impulse process.
Increase of the manipulation ability
a.Parallel to the first process, necessary for the function realization, introduce into the system the second process, which can be managed easily.
b.It is useful to incorporate the process and the process transformer DATA, which can enable the control functions under the DATA (a carrier of the necessary function).
DATA incorporation restriction overcoming
1. Temporal incorporation of the DATA.
2. Incorporation of the DATA in the precise “place” only.
3. Usage of the DATAs that already exist in the system or environment as the incorporated ones.
4. Incorporation of the transformed DATAs of system or environment itself (i.e., usage of the transformed system’s/environment’s DATAs as the incorporated ones).
5. Usage absence of DATA as an incorporated DATA.
6. Usage of the DATA mixture. In this case, different types of mixtures might be used: mixture of various system DATAs; mixture of system and environment DATAs and so on
7. Usage of a process instead of incorporating of the DATA.
Process incorporation restriction overcoming
1. Temporal incorporation of the process.
2. Incorporation of the process in the precise “place” only.
3. Usage of the processes that already exist in the system or environment as the incorporated ones.
4. Incorporation of the transformed processes of system or environment itself (i.e., usage of the transformed system’s/environment’s processes as the incorporated ones).
5. Usage of a process pause as the incorporated process.
6. Usage of the combinations of processes. In this case some different combinations might be used: mixture of various system and environment processes etc.
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